For the month of July, the theme for the Cinema Sunday posts will be "Journeys to the Past and Future".
Today's post will kick off with a pair of movies that send us back to the year 1191 and to the roaring 1920's.
First on deck is 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and Basil Rathbone.
Richard, the Norman King of England, is off fighting in the Crusades and gets himself abducted for all that.
Prince John, Richard's brother, feels really bad about that and... oh hell no, he doesn't! He declares himself regent of England in his quest usurp Richard's throne.
Prince John sends out fellow Norman Sir Guy of Gisbourne, to collect more taxes from the Saxons for the "Save Richard" fund which... no, that ain't a thing.
So Sir Guy and his gang are out there amongst the Saxons whipping and flogging and stabbing and poking and what all collecting more taxes.
This pisses off Sir Robin of Locksley, a Saxon noble, so he and his friends make it their job to make Sir Guy miserable by rescuing the oppressed from whipping and flogging and stabbing and poking and what all while stealing back the all the ill gotten gains Sir Guy is taking on Prince John's behalf.
The sniveling sycophantic Sheriff of Nottingham from safely behind Prince John declares this erstwhile Robin Hood and his so called Merry Men outlaws of the Crown and Sir Guy vows they will be captured and executed.
Lady Marian, Richard's ward who lives with Prince John, finds Robin Hood to be a brutish lout but there's something about his... (eyeing the bulge in Robin's tights) inner nobility?
Yeah, that's it. Nobility.
Meanwhile Robin Hood and his men are hiding out in Sherwood Forest which is like their own backyard and making a mockery of Sir Guy's efforts to stop Robin Hood.
Robin and the gang score a major haul of a crap ton of ill gotten gains from the Saxons which includes kidnapping Sir Guy and the Sheriff.
Lady Marian was along for ride with those two cretins which gives Robin a chance to show Marian up close and personal why he does what he does. Seeing the sad and sorry state of the oppressed Saxons, Marian is impressed with Robin's (quick bashful downward glance) nobility, she's on Robin side but decides she must stay with Prince John in order to be Robin's eyes on the inside.
All the tropes of the Robin Hood legend are on display in this movie. What we know of Robin Hood were first presented in this film.
- The battle on the bridge between Robin Hood and Little John.
- The contest for the golden arrow.
- Robin' first encounter with Friar Tuck.
- Robin's epic sword battle with Sir Guy in the castle.
- During this sequencer, Andrea commented, "What do they have against candles?" Well, it's an easy way of proving the swords are sharp without actually lobbing off a limb or someone's nobility.
- Posing with their hands on their hips, Robin and the Merry Men laughing in the face of danger.
- You know how in the Doctor Who episode "Robot of Sherwood", the Doctor is continually irritated by Robin and the gang always laughing at everything. "Nothing is that funny!" Well, the Doctor would've blown a gasket barely 1/5 of the way into The Adventures of Robin Hood. These guys are always laughing heartily at every damn thing.
King Richard returns, banishes Prince John, pardons Robin and his men, and commands Robin to go fuck Marian already.
Er, excuse me, I meant to say the king tells Robin to take the hand of the Lady Marian in marriage. As Robin exits the castle with her, he responds "May I obey all your commands with equal pleasure, sire".
The Adventures of Robin Hood is an enjoyable film, filled with color, energy and spirit. It's a classic match up of good versus evil with a truly noble protagonist. Robin Hood has been fucked over personally by Prince John and Sir Guy but his main driving force is what's happening to other people.
Various efforts have been engaged over the decades to re-tell the legend of Robin Hood (including one misbegotten film back in the 1990's with the very much NOT British Kevin Costner in the title role) but Errol Flynn and this movie emphatically set the standard impeccably in 1938 and every Robin Hood film since then has been a pale imitation of this classic film.
Our next movie takes an unusual spin with the Robin Hood legend in a story set in 1920's Chicago with gangsters in open war fare withe each other. A musical from 1964, starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr.,Bing Crosby and Peter Falk, here is Robin and the 7 Hoods.
"Big" Jim Stevens, undisputed boss of the Chicago underworld, gets an unexpected birthday present, murdered in a machine gun massacre orchestrated by his ambitious lieutenant, Guy Gisborne.
Gisborne takes over, ordering all the other gangsters in town to pay him protection money.
Big Jim's friend and fellow gangster, Robbo, ain't down with Gisbourne's plans and a gangland war breaks out.
Robbo recruits pool hustler Little John, quick-draw artist Will and a few others but Robbo and his gang are still greatly outnumbered by Gisborne's operatives.
Gisborne destroys Robbo's gambling house while Robbo's out smashing up Gisborne's set up.
Big Jim's refined, educated daughter, Marian, shows up to worm her way into Robbo's operation, ostensibly to seek revenge for her father's death. Marian gives $50,000 to seal the deal but Robbo's doesn't want Marian's involvement so he donates the money to a boys' orphanage.
Allen A. Dale, the orphanage's director, notifies the newspapers about this good deed.
Chicago is enchanted with this idea of a gangster who robs from the rich and gives to the poor.
Robbo rolls with it. It doesn't hurt to have the public on his side. Dale joins the gang and starts the Robbo Foundation, opening soup kitchens, free clinics, orphan shelters and other charitable enterprises.
Robbo's joint reopens and is an instant hit while Gisborne's is an empty shell of it's former glory.
Then things take downturn for Robbo's fortunes.
Robbo is framed for murder and Little John's left in charge.
Marian's back and her seduction of Little John is more effective than her efforts to entice Robbo and Marian gets her hooks into Robbo's organization.
Robbo beats the rap for murder but is very pissed off to find out that during his absence, Marian is using his charitable organizations as fronts for her counterfeiting operation. Robbo might be a crook but the charities are on the up and up.
Marian looks to finagle Gisbourne into her schemes but he winds up in a cement block as a building cornerstone for his trouble.
Putting dead bodies in cement blocks and then putting those blocks into a new building under construction is a favored practice for disposing of inconvenient bodies.
Robbo tries to force Marian out of his operation but she gets back at him by starting a Women's League for Better Government and framing Robbo for the very counterfeiting ring that she started.
It should be clear well before now this Marian is nothing like the one in The Adventures of Robin Hood.
Robbo and his merry men are reduced to working as sidewalk Santas while Marian partners up with Alan A. Dale.
Robin and the 7 Hoods plays fast and loose with the tropes of the Robin Hood legends but it's a bit of dumb fun that almost didn't get completed.
Right in the middle of shooting the picture, Frank Sinatra had to contend with the assassination of President John F Kennedy who he was friends with AND the kidnapping of his son, Frank Jr.
While Frank was the star and an producer on the film, Robin and the 7 Hoods affords all the players significant time in front of the camera, particularly for Bing Crosby who by 1964 was past the peak of his earlier motion picture success.
Next week, Cinema Sunday's "Journeys to the Past and Future" takes us to the past once more as we embark on one last adventure with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
The week after, it's off to the not too distant future.
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