The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Why resist Robin Hood? Errol Flynn’s golden pageboy and crenellated sleeves are in the blood already, his position as the culture’s morally sanctioned freedom fighter all the more secure for lack of any identifiable real-life referent. Your fifth-grade play probably looked a little like this, though Warner Bros. sprung for better sets, and you weren’t allowed to do most of your own stunts. In the 1938 Technicolor telling, Flynn jumps from trees, down stairs, and into streams—all the while putting arrows into greedy Normans, who are ransacking England under the traitorous regent, John, while the true king, Richard, is away. None of the dead men bleed (and Merry Men can’t die) but there’s no shortage of saturated dazzle: the banners, those quaintly clean tights, Maid Marian’s (Olivia de Havilland) gauzy, glittering headgear—and her eyes, as she watches Robin win. Elina Mishuris (June 22, 4:30pm at MoMA’s “Glorious Technicolor”)