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Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
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List Price: $19.98
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Product Details
- Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Patric Knowles
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- Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
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- Binding: VHS Tape
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- Director: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley
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- EAN: 9780790745404
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- Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Original recording reissued, NTSC
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- ISBN: 0790745402
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- Label: Warner Home Video
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- Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
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- Number of Items: 1
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- Product Group: Video
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- Publisher: Warner Home Video
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- Release Date: 2000-03-07
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- Studio: Warner Home Video
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- Theatrical Release Date: 1938-05-14
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- Title: Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
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- UPC: 012569513136
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Avg Customer Rating: 
Product Description: Dashing Errol Flynn is the definitive Robin Hood in the most gloriously swashbuckling version of the legendary story. Warner Brothers reunited Michael Curtiz, their top-action director, with the winning team of Flynn and Olivia de Havilland (Maid Marian) and perennial villain Basil Rathbone as the aristocratic Sir Guy of Gisbourne, and pulled out all stops for the production. It became their costliest film to date, a grandly handsome, glowing Technicolor adventure set to a stirring, Oscar-winning score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The decadent Prince John (a smoothly conniving Claude Rains) takes advantage of King Richard's absence to tax the country into poverty but meets his match in the medieval guerrilla rebel Robin Hood and his Merry Men of Sherwood Forest, who rise up and, to quote a cliché coined by the film, "steal from the rich and give to the poor." Stocky Alan Hale Sr. plays Robin's loyal friend Little John (a part he played in Douglas Fairbanks's silent version), Eugene Palette the portly Friar Tuck, and Melville Cooper the bumbling Sheriff of Nottingham. Flynn's confidence and cocky charm makes for a perfect Robin Hood, and his easygoing manner is a marvelous counterpoint to Rathbone's regal bearing and courtly diction. The film climaxes in their rousing battle-to-the-finish sword fight, a magnificently choreographed scene highlighted by Curtiz's inventive use of shadows cast upon the castle walls. --Sean Axmaker
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Customer Reviews
The Region 2 Sets Are Far Superior !
If you want better quality prints for this great old series go to amazon.com.uk and buy the region 2 sets. They have all 4 seasons 5 disc per season struck from original negatives. The region 1 sets are from poor public domain prints crammed on 3 discs quality ranging from poor to good. You will have to have an all region player that converts pal to ntsc to play region 2 these are cheap now some are available at walmart and on e-bay.
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Blu-ray is the best!
This blu-ray edition of this exceptional classic movie is really the best. The color and clarity are clearly superior. I can enjoy it like it was in the movies.
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Errol as Robin Hood flies high!
Errol Flynn's take on the Robin Hood myth is legendary. Lovely Olivia deHavilland is a fine romantic interest, especially as she changes from the antagonist in the early scenes to the realization of Robin's altruistic motives during her stay in Sherwood. The latest re-incarnation on video is an absolutely glowing Technicolor reproduction
on blu-ray. The verdant greens of Sherwood near pop off the screen.
It's hard to believe the film is 70 years old. Warners has restored it
to its pristene glory and included a plethora of extras including an
excellent audio commentary. Add to that Michael Curtiz' lively direction and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's rousing score, it's a classic not to be missed.
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Speak Treason Fluently
Overall, the combination of screenplay, directing, pacing, music, action, and acting make this not only the greatest screen version of Robin Hood ever, but one of the greatest all-time adventure classics. Adventure movies are no longer made, unfortunately, having been replaced by 'Action Movies.' An Action Movie is an Adventure Movie with a very bad case of ADHD, or maybe an Adventure Movie on meth, with a low IQ. Too bad, Adventure Movies were classier, and could be enjoyed by women and grown men as well as adolescent boys.
Errol Flynn as Robin Hood is probably the greatest hero in any Adventure Movie. Just perfect, and the guy did his own sword-fighting, and took lessons from an world-class archer for the shooting scenes.
Besides being great entertainment, Robin Hood is very well made from a technical point of view, but does not hit you over the head trying to be artsy-fartsy. The scene where Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone are having the climactic fight, and they slide past the camera, while the camera seamlessly catches the perfect, fighting shadows, then seamlessly they slip back into camera is just fantastic.
There is strong element of populist social commentary in this film. The poor and working people are in a state of deprivation and tyranny because King Richard has become entangled in a foreign military adventure.
My favorite part, after the climactic sword fight, is when Robin gives Maid Marion a tour of the medieval equivalent of a Hooverville. This is a movie made in 1938, and this is a wonderful way of reminding the audience, and modern viewers, of what true poverty looks like. Later in this sequence, you can see Robin and Marion gaze lustfully after each other as they eat at the same table with the homeless. For this film's original audience, hunger was never too far away.
This film blends the spirit of Romantic Adventure with a strong call to social justice. One of my top 10 all time favorite movies. I could watch it once a week.
The documentary on the making of this film is also excellent, and increases my appreciation. And of course the 2 Warner Bros. cartoons are also great.
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Superb Print and Must-Have
I have never seen this movie in such beautiful color. We own a 12 foot screen and the quality was superb. Taken from direct masters, restored for superior color and sound. The extras are superb, too. Errol Flynn movie trailers and the alternate ending that was never used, which pre-dates Disney horse-drawn carriage scenes shown often in Cinderella and others. Don't buy the single disc, but the two-disc set. You owe it to yourself.
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