The Adventures of Robin Hood

Michael Curtiz, 1938 (8.2*)
This version of Robin Hood remains one of the most lively and colorful; it playfully captures the feel of the original legendary myth – after all, it’s a band of merry men cavorting in the woods in tights! These are the people who invented the phrase ‘derring-do’, that pretty well sums it up.

It’s a film of fluff and derring-do, all with gusto and tongue-in-cheek, starring the energetic Errol Flynn as the nobleman turned highway robber with his band of thieves. Olivia de Havilland provides the romance, as a damsel trapped inside the castle with those in control, but whose heart is stirred by this roqueish rascal, who, of course, risks capture just to face Olivia and make with some serious flirtation from a distance, which is all it takes for this bored lady.

Of course, there has to be a reason for all this, so the story is that while King Richard is away fighting in one of the Crusades, the Norman lords, led by Basil Rathbone, are abusing the Saxon masses, so Robin of Loxley stands up for the people by basically becoming a small-time warlord with a tiny guerrilla army hiding in the forests, so he's a medieval Che Guevara fighting the politicians in cahoots with the wealthy capitalists who together are stealing land from the people with inpunity.

For it’s time, this was some of the best technicolor ever put on film, it’s a beautiful palette to behold, one of my favorites (I’m a painter and a photographer, with a degree in Painting and Drawing). They truly 'don't make em like this anymore', though Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy (2003-07) is an attempt to recapture the unbridled, mindless joy of cinematic mayhem in the name of good.

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The Breaking Point

Michael Curtiz, 1950, bw (8.7*)
Well after To Have and Have Not (1944), which was loosely based on the Ernest Hemingway novel and which introduced Bacall to Bogart, this remake from famed director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) attempted to remain more faithful to the novel, and the author himself thought it was the finest cinema adaptation of any of his works. This was a much more serious and cynical treatment than the Hollywoodish original.

John Garfield is the small boat captain who’s not too particular about who hires out his boat, as he’s seeing some rough economic times, and he needs to make a boat payment pronto or it could e repossessed. He takes on a charter that definitely involves clandestine, illegal activity that may find him in over his head.

Patricia Neal turns in one of her best performances as the woman who drifts into his life from the other side of tracks (or other side of the harbor in this case), and her coy, self-assured demeanor seems more real than Lauren Bacall’s in the original (and I liked Neal even more), as if she’s honed this act on many men before now, and on a classier batch then Garfield. The two had an apathetic, jaded type of chemistry onscreen, which seems more likely given most Hemingway characters; Garfield treated her like a distraction, not an attraction.

The reason the film has been forgotten is that just before it’s release Garfield was called to testify before the HUAC in Congress, and the studio dropped support for the film and the actor like a hot potato, and Garfield’s career never really recovered, ending just two years later. Though Garfield is certainly no Bogart as an actor, in a way he’s even more of an average joe type of guy, so this is the perfect role for him.

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Life With Father

Michael Curtiz, 1947 (8.2*)
From the director of Casablanca comes this wonderful classic comedy of the family patriarch and universal curmudgeon, a film of the long-running Broadway play which thrives on probably the best performance ever by William Powell, better known for the Thin Man series. This is author Clarence Day's coming-of-age story, which centers on the aristocratic and authoritarian, yet humorous father. Classic comedienne Irene Dunne is his long suffering wife.

Powell created the epitome of the stubborn, self-righteous, but lovable family man, later emulated in shows like The Honeymooners and All in the Family. In this first film (there were sequels), much is made of the fact that he has never been baptized, so everyone is convinced he's going to hell when he dies, which seems to worry everyone else more than father.

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Casablanca

Dir: Michael Curtiz, 1942, bw (10*)

Best Picture (AA)

AFI and Time Mag Top 100

Even though a soapy melodrama, Casablanca is the best of that type that you'll find, as it transcends that genre by blending film noir style, anti-Nazi politics, and suspense and intrigue into what is basically a non-sentimental love story. Humphrey Bogart runs an American style bar called "Rick's Cafe Americaine" in Morocco, and in walks Ingrid Bergman and her husband, Jewish resistance fighter Paul Henreid, wanted by the Nazis. What follows is a combination rekindled lovers and escaping fugitive story that is still popular to this day, to the point of being parodied in many films (best is Woody Allen's "Play It Again, Sam", a line which was never spoken in this movie regarding the song "As Tears Go By"). Dooley Wilson steals scenes as Sam, the piano player, Claude Rains as well as Louis, a sympathetic French officer, and Peter Lorre is typically weaselly as a scared criminal. Everyone's favorite romance. 3 Oscars

Quote: Of all the gin joints in the world, why did she have to walk into mine. (Bogart)

Quote2: The problems of two measley people don't amount to a hill of beans in this world. (Bogart)

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