The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

#100 on Thrills

We all know the basic story of Robin Hood.  This movie is one of the best versions of it ever made.  Action, adventure, romance. What more could a person ask for?

I love that Marian wasn't just a fainting, helpless, damsel in distress; she actually participated in the cunning moves and the saving, and the defending of England, but still in a way considered "proper" for her time. I suppose in most portrays she is pretty awesome.  It would be pretty badass to see her pick up a sword though.  Speaking of swords, Errol Flynn? is amazing.   Athletic and charming, I can see why he is so great.

I forgot Claude Rains was in this, but I shouldn’t have because Claude Rains is in EVERYTHING.  Seriously, pay attention to his tag on this blog. It will only go up as I write about more films. He is cast in everything because he is good.  Better than good. He is one of the greatest character actors ever.

Random: The horse Marian rides is Trigger, of Roy Rogers fame (before he met Roy, obviously.)  When Trigger died, they had his hide stretched over a plaster model of his likeness, to be placed in the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum.  If that weren’t strange enough, after that museum was closed in 2009, the items from it (including Trigger) were put up for auction at Christie’s in New York in 2010.  I worked next to Christie’s at the time.   I saw Trigger. It was weird.  I’m still trying to figure out why they did this to this horse.   Stranger still, some TV station purchased Trigger.   On one level, I get it. Kind of like the Natural History Museum.  This does not make this seem any less bizarre to me.

Favorite Quote:

Lady Marian Fitzswalter: Why, you speak treason!
Robin Hood: Fluently.

Stats post: The best year in film?

It has often been argued that 1939 is the best year in film.  Such gems as The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Destry Rides Again, Wuthering Heights (with Laurence Olivier), Ninotchka, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Gunga Din, and so many  more were released that year.   So it would seem to be good reason to assume that 1939 would be a year that was well represented on the list, and at 9 films it is;.  But.  1942, and 1982 both top the list for most films at 11 each.

Does this make those 2 years the greatest?  I'm not sure, but it does mean they have a lot of films that appeal to a lot of people.

Here are the films for each year on the list:

1939	1942	1982
Dark Victory	Bambi	An Officer and a Gentleman
Gone With the Wind	Casablanca	Blade Runner
Gunga Din	Mrs. Miniver	Diner
Hunchback of Notre Dame	Now, Voyager	E.T.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington	The Palm Beach Story	Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Ninotchka	Pride of the Yankees	Gandhi
Stagecoach	Random Harvest	Poltergeist
Wizard of Oz	Road to Morocco	Sophie’s Choice
Wuthering Heights	To Be or Not To Be	Tootsie
	Woman of the Year	The Verdict
	Yankee Doodle Dandy	Victor/Victoria

Of those 31 films, so far I've seen 15 of them, and they were all pretty fabulous.

I think trying to decide what the best year in film was is too hard of a task. There were so many good films released in the last 100 years, with so much talent.  And these particular films cover such a variety of genres and audiences, from animated, to romance, to comedies, and action adventure fantasy films.  How could you possibly say one year was the absolute best?

So, in conclusion, I need to watch more films from the list and blog more often.  Please accept this post as an apology, and you are hopefully sticking with me as I'm slow to post things :-)