DVD Review HTF REVIEW: The Adventures Of Robin Hood - 2 Disc SE (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). (1 Viewer)

[Neil S. Bulk]

That glitch is on every copy.

Neil

 

[Derek U]

Phew!

Thank you Neil for the reassurance. Now, the challenge is to find the time to go through all the features in the set (not to mention the rest of the Warner Legends Collection)

Derek

 

[Vincent Matis]

Are the extra features subtitled? Thanks!

Cheers,

Vincent

 

[John Hodson]

Who knew even back then people cursed too

It was an Anglo-Saxon art form...

My copy of the Warner Legends box set will be shipped probably today - excellent!

---
So many films, so little time...

 

[Joel Vardy]

A real GEM!! I'm floored at the quality of this 1938 classic. Though $2MM was a lot at the time, the quality of everything from the script, to the cast, to the set design and direction was top notch. Clearly the standard for all Robin Hood films, despite the earlier wonderful efforts during the silent era. Technicolor was an equal part of the success, lending a wonderful dimension of emotional power to an otherwise already solid film.

Joel

 

[SteveGon]

Just screened this yesterday. I hadn't seen TAORH in years and had forgotten what a purely entertaining film it is! And to echo the prevailing sentiment: damn, does it look good on this DVD!

 

[Bill Burns]

Really enjoyed the xtras as well espically the 1938 outake reel. Who knew even back then people cursed too

I adore extras like this. In descending order of delight, flubs/bloppers, outtakes/deleted scenes, period radio shows, related short films, commentaries, and documentaries are the extras I most appreciate, and this release has something from each of these categories! (though the radio show seems to be music only). Excellent work, Warner Bros.. I haven't made it to the film itself yet, but hopefully will tonight.

As to the flubs/bloopers reel, the opportunity to see Jimmy Stewart curse is worth the price of the set all by itself*! I laughed very loud indeed at several of the scenes -- this thing is pure gold. Does anyone know the name of the charming, lovely actress who says "that line was screwy"? Or rather "scru-ay." She's a delight.

The digital glitch on Glorious Technicolor is precisely the same glitch I noticed during the assault scene in Kino's The Love Trap, which is paired with a documentary on the director, William Wyler; the glitch occures during the feature, though, not the doc in that case. In both Glorious Technicolor and The Love Trap, it lasts only a couple of frames, and affects both picture (blocks of colorful compression noise) and sound (a thud-like "pop"). This doc and that feature are the only two instances I've found of this error in over six years of DVD watching (a similar, but not quite as noticeable, error can also be found on Anchor Bay's The Day the Earth Caught Fire, but I'm not certain it's the same problem). The audio pop is the loudest of all the above on the Technicolor doc, and so the error is most noticeable here (though the multi-colored compression blocks do stand out, even for a couple of frames, on the black-and-white The Love Trap! ).

A minor issue, to be sure, but if it's preventable, one worth noting in any feedback studio folk might read.

On to the picture ....

* UPDATE: upon reviewing the discs again, I see that Jimmy's blooper (along with a few others) is actually found in the Here's Looking at You, Warner Bros. documentary, rather than the Breakdowns of 1938 short. Speaking of Breakdowns, though, I notice that this and a few other supplements aren't mentioned in Herb's review -- if anyone's having trouble finding Breakdowns, it's under "From the Cutting Room" on the second page of supplements, disc 2 of The Adventures of Robin Hood (to describe it in proper order: on the front page of disc 2 select "Special Features," then on page 1 of "Special Features" scroll down to the bottom and select "Continue"; on the following page you'll find "A Journey to Sherwood Forest," "From the Cutting Room" -- containing outtakes from The Adventures of Robin Hood in gloriously restored Glorious Technicolor {these clips look just as good as, and perhaps even better than -- specifically sharper than -- the feature}, and the separate short film Breakdowns of 1938, in which all footage, including a few flubs from Robin Hood, are in B&W --, "Audio Vault", and "Splitting the Arrow Galleries").

 

[Bill Burns]

In keeping with a promise on another thread:

"Excellent!"

I'd disagree with Herb that anything is oversaturated, though. Colors are certainly more subdued, in general, than Singin' in the Rain, WB's previous "Ultra Resolution" offering (I assume this was combined under that process, though the release doesn't mention it), and from statements made on the Glorious Technicolor doc (by Robert Osborne and others), as well as clips of various films shown on that doc (including a very lively, fleeting clip of Becky Sharp far more colorful than a few frames of the exact same scene on The Widescreen Museum website -- in the doc, the clip is much more consistent with other frames of Becky provided on TWM, rich in blue in particular) I'm convinced, personally, that this represents great fidelity to its original release form (lack of print damage/misalignment anomalies notwithstanding, and perhaps a slight desaturation of blue in day-for-night sequences, as suggested by Rudy Behlmer in his commentary). It looks much in keeping with the contrast The Wizard of Oz of course wanted to establish between its sepia Kansas material and the rainbow of Oz -- though, again, Sherwood isn't candy-colored, unlike Oz and the much later Singin' in the Rain, and feels very consistent with the material. A few shots look a bit softer than I'd like, but that is probably consistent with achievable exterior light levels for the very demanding process. A few filtered close-ups of de Havilland are, of course, intentionally soft for deliberate effect.

Here's a trivia question -- I saw the car on my first viewing, but noticed a couple of other bits of stuff on my second go-through. First, is that jello in the bowls on the banquet table in Normandy Castle? When Robin tosses the deer on the table, blocks of what look like colored jello jiggle for all they're worth in a couple of bowls, most noticeably in one more or less between the camera and the deer (frame left of the deer). I'm pretty sure jello wasn't around in the 12th century (the fact that this is much more fantasy than history notwithstanding, but would it have been too much trouble to fill them with fruit, rather than fruit jello?). Secondly, spears and swords bend very easily -- they're not made of iron, of course, but some sort of aluminum, according to Rudy Behlmer, but I noticed the fellow who falls from a ladder during ...

Robin Hood's rescue from the gallows

... bends the top of a spear until it's shaped like a hook. As we all know from The Mask of Zorro, the "pointy end goes into the other man" on such weapons. Heh. Not on movie sets, of course, thank goodness, but that spear-turned-fish hook, only visible for a frame or two, still tickled me a bit, as well it may have the stuntman, literally . Also, during the climactic sword fight, Robin Hood's sword bends -- you can see that it's bent when he points it at the guard and demands he ...

open the cell holding the Lady Marian

... yet when he ...

enters the cell and we cut to the interior, the sword is perfectly straight as he tilts it to the ground and then releases it.

Little quirks, always fun to notice. I'd never seen the film in its entirety (prints on television were just too painful to watch), and finally watching it like this was a true treat.