Mobile Navigation
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Perhaps the grandest of adventure films remains timeless entertainment. Errol Flynn cemented his stardom—first realized with Curtiz in Captain Blood and The Charge of the Light Brigade—by becoming the charming brigand who fights evil Prince John (Claude Rains) and Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone), while wooing the lovely Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland). Curtiz shares directorial honors with William Keighley after taking over the picture in the middle of production. One of the great film scores by Erich Wolfgang Korngold accentuates a lavish production by Hal Wallis and Henry Blanke. The film also stars Patric Knowles, Eugene Pallette, Alan Hale and Melville Cooper.
35mm, Technicolor, 102 min. Production/Distribution Company: Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. Directors: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley. Screenwriter: Norman Reilly Raine, Seton I. Miller. Cinematographers: Sol Polito, Tony Gaudio. Editor: Ralph Dawson. Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Patric Knowles.
The Case of the Curious Bride (1935)
Errol Flynn’s American film debut (in a pair of brief appearances) is a postscript to a rapidly paced Perry Mason mystery that is as amusing as it is clever. Warren William stars as a gastronomically inclined Mason who dines at Fisherman’s Wharf with his factotum Spudsy (Allen Jenkins) and coroner pal (Olin Howland), before attempting to unravel his discovery of a corpse (Flynn) while aiding a damsel in distress. Curtiz sets a breakneck pace of quick transitions and dissolves in the most entertaining of the six Warner Bros. Mason films adapted from Erle Stanley Gardner’s novels.
35mm, b/w, 80 min. Production: First National Productions Corp. Distribution: First National Pictures, Inc., The Vitaphone Corp. Director: Michael Curtiz. Producer: Harry Joe Brown. Screenwriter: Tom Ree. Based on the novel by Erle Stanley Gardner. Cinematographer: David Abel. Editor: Terry Morse. Cast: Warren William, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Woods, Claire Dodd, Allen Jenkins.
Print courtesy of the Library of Congress.
