Some stories never seem to find audiences when they're filmed - Ned Kelly, Eureka Stockade, Alice in Wonderland - whereas others always seem to - Titanic, Robin Hood, romantic comedies involving deception. You couldn't say this was the definitive Robin Hood but its the definitive classical Hollywood version.It's hard to imagine a more perfect fairytale Robin than Errol Flynn, all sparking teeth and green tights, bursting into the castle with a stag over his shoulders throwing it on the table. He's more than matched by Olivia de Havilland, exquisite as Maid Marian, a little imperious but basically nice, very brave in a trembling school virgin way, but with a twinkle in her eye to match Flynn's.
The support cast is dazzling: the silky villainy of Claude Rains as King John (he has some lovely justifications for the things he does and his look on the end - "but I'm your brother" - is priceless), the smooth Basil Rathbone, bluff hearty Alan Hale as Little John, fat spunky Eugene Palatte as Friar Tuck.
The film keeps hitting bullseyes all the way through: the scene where King John and company are wondering about how to find Robin and he just saunters in, the fight on the log between Little John and Robin, the meeting with Friar Tuck, the balcony scene between Robin and Marian, the archery competition, the reveal of King Richard's identity (what a thrill to see Ian Hunter pull back his cloack to show who he is), the final battle (for some reason the sword fight between Flynn and Rathbone here isn't as highly regarded amongst coineussuers as Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk maybe because it doesn't involve rapiers but I love it just as much), the sumptuous music.
Occasionally there are what surely must be unintended laughs: the Merry Men are a bit too Merry at times, Will Scarlett (Patric Knowles) tooks totally wimpy playing his lute and laughing on the bank while Robin fights Little John; I also think it was a mistake for the Merry Men to capture Basil Rathbone then let him go - it devalues him as an antogonist.
Melvile C Cooper's Sherriff of Nottingham is more buffoonish than a threat - though the filmmakers probably figured with Rathbone and Rains they could afford a more comic villain, and Nottingham does come up with the clever archery tournament trap - and there is an extra villain most people forget, the cardinal played by Montagu Love. (People sometimes forget, too, Herbert Mundin as Much the Miller's Son, who gets quite a long sequence towards the end when he has to kill a henchman of Rathbone's). Considering all the hands that went into this - two directors, several writers (Seton I Miller is one of the forgotten heroes of Errol Flynn's career) its a tribute to the Hollywood factory. And only 98 minutes, too!
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