The Adventures Of Robin Hood!

The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn collection I have, is one of those sets that takes full advantage of the format to offer up a wide array of interesting, enlightening and entertaining extras. There's a whole faux-afternoon of film-going experience with a trailer, a cartoon, a newsreel, and a short film. There's background on the creation of the movie, the 1922 Robin Hood movie with Douglas Fairbanks, and a delightfully detailed commentary. There are two classic cartoons with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck both lampooning the Robin Hood story. There's a Flynn trailer library and features on the invention of Technicolor and more. 

A great tasty collection not even mentioning a colorful presentation of this classic adventure story. Errol Flynn as Robin and Basil Rathbone as Guy of Gisborne might just be the finest hero-villain casting in the history of film. They are perfect in their roles and their swordfight is easily in my all-time top ten list of favorite movie moments. I've long had a still of the classic duel, which is tucked away in a box right now, but has historically been in my office.

Vic Prezio

Original Cover by Lansky and Eng

All this Robin Hood thinking got me to remembering one of the earliest Classics Illustrated volumes I ever owned featuring the adventures of the outlaw from Sherwood. It's a solid comic adventure with a lush cover image by Vic Prezio clearly inspired by Errol Flynn's definitive version from the movie. And some sturdy artwork and storytelling inside by writer Evelyn Goodman and artists Louis Zansky and Fred Eng. If you've never sampled Classic Illustrated before, this is a good one to begin with.

If ever there was an actor who brought the zeitgeist of the "superhero" to the big screen it was Flynn, a larger-than-life personality who could play the bejeezus out of any large role he was given. And Robin Hood, star of many a comic book, and the inspiration for such hardcase "superheroes" as Green Arrow and Hawkeye the Marksman is certainly a larger-than-life role. And it's hard to take your eyes of off Olivia De Haviland as she saunters through the movie in one beautiful outfit after another. Claude Rains is on hand for some prime villainy as well. Alan Hale plays Littler John a role he amazingly performed three times in three different decades on film. 

This is a must-see classic movie, if only for the orgy of colors provided by refined Technicolor of the era. 

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Captain Blood!

(Alex Raymond)

I don't think there has ever been a movie star with the allure and romance of Errol Flynn save perhaps for his predecessor Rudolph Valentino. He was dashing, handsome, and communicated a sense of devil-may-care that illuminated any room he walked into. 

Errol Flynn might well have been the greatest "movie star" ever. Of course, part of that fame is really the infamy of his personal life which is the very stuff of Hollywood legend. This movie is also the breakout for Olvia De Haviland, and she and Flynn had crazy chemistry on the big screen. Lionel Atwill plays a baddie in this jaunt, and I love Atwill in anything. 

This story from Rafael Sabatini's 1922 novel Captain Blood is a simple but tragic one. Peter Blood is a doctor who gets swept up in the political strife of his country when he's falsely accused of being a rebel against James I of England. His punishment is to be made a slave and sent to be sold as such. He is forced to serve as a slave for some time though his skills as a doctor give him elevated status. Nevertheless, when a Spanish warship is overtaken, it creates the opportunity for Blood to become a daring and dashing pirate with intentions of revenge on those who imprisoned him. This movie also sets up a clash between Flynn's Blood and Basil Rathbone's pirate Levasseur. It would prove to be the template for more such clashes. 

Captain Blood was Flynn's debut movie as a leading man in 1935, and a magnificent one it was. The character of Peter Blood as portrayed by Flynn is at once noble and selfish. Blood is a great vehicle for the viewer into the battle for freedom. He just wants to be left alone, but he is drawn into the war because of his noble ethics and finds no one in leadership possessing any ethics. He is what we'd call today radicalized by his imprisonment and harsh treatment. In our real world, the current savage conflict in the Gaza Strip will almost certainly have created lifelong enemies for the state of Israel. Certainly, villains exist and must be dealt with, but just as doubtless men are made enemies by what they see around them. Injustice is blind to a flag -- any flag. 

This is a must-see classic. More derring-do when The Sea Hawk docks later this week.    

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The Magic Sword!

I was more than a bit surprised at how much I enjoyed The Magic Sword. Now I'm not saying it's a good movie, but it's far from a bad one. The highlights are Basil Rathbone in his last days, as the sorcerer villain, playing it to the hilt and Estelle Winwood as a more friendly and somewhat dithering sorceress. Gary Lockwood is adequate as the smitten heroic lead, and Anne Helm is quite fetching as our obligatory damsel in distress. 

The real star of this show is the direction of Bert I. Gordon who breaks out all those size-manipulating gimmicks which made most of his other movies tick. We get little people and a giant ogre, all thanks to forced perspective, giant props, and other movie magic. There are also other bizarre types in this one such as blue-faced henchmen and cone-headed creeps. It's a veritable cavalcade of oddities, including an above-average dragon who reminds me more than a bit of the famous Gorgo. And for no particular reason there's a chimp. 

You can guess the plot. An evil magician kidnaps a princess to feed to his dragon if the doting parents don't cough up the treasure. They invariably send a knight or knights who fall victim to seven deadly curses. Our princess gets nabbed via magic and despite our hero having magic weapons, including the titular blade, and the help of sex other loyal knights it's a squeaker. 

Don't run out to see this one, but if it crosses your path give it a gander. 

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The Case Of The Fine California Muscatel!

 

Sherlock Holmes is one of those timeless characters who seems always to find a way to speak to the modern. Certainly the wild success of the BBC series Sherlock showed that the essence of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle detective could be translated quite successfully into the 21st Century. That's really nothing new since for intents and purposes the same thing was done when Universal Pictures featured Sherlock and his biographer Watson battling Nazis in the WWII in the classic series which for many, myself included, defined the character. Rathbone is often my favorite Sherlock, having to share that position with Jeremy Brett in the 1980's television series which was more true to the original stories. 

But part of the great Rathbone tradition I was unaware of for the most part was the radio shows he did with his onscreen partner Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. These half-hour mysteries, collectively titled The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes were written by the likes of Anthony Boucher and Dennis Greene among others and offer up Sherlockian adventures from across time. The most exquisite conceit of the radio shows (which I picked up on CD last year and have been enjoying on those rare occasions I actually travel in these Covid-19 times) is that Nigel Bruce as Watson introduces the stories. He is once again elevated to his role as host and Bruce's delightful warmth of personality shines through. 

He plays the role of Watson as a retired physician who has come to California to spend his last years and while doing so does on the radio what he did in the short stories and novels and that's relate the adventures he had with Sherlock Holmes. Nigel Bruce is ideal for this sort of role, and despite what many think of him in the Universal movies, I've always found his Watson so charming that I am well able to forgive its dubious connection to the more straight-laced and frankly somewhat dull Watson of the Doyle stories. 

The gimmick is that a representative of the show's sponsor, which was California's  Petri Wine, goes to see Dr. Watson and they have a jovial conversation for a few moments before the story proper begins. Though the show is titled after Sherlock Holmes it's easily Nigel Bruce's Watson that dominates the proceedings. The shows also incorporate several ads for Petri Wines, but these are often done with humor and lightness. 

As in the stories we have Watson's voice relating to us though of course the bulk of the storytelling is done in traditional dramatic form with Basil Rathbone joining in to create a rousing little yarn. To be honest many of the mysteries are pretty flimsy as given the timeframe there's not much time for complications. But in addition to adaptations of the actual Doyle stories we get new ones which in almost every instance spin out of some detail from a canonical tale. 

Listening to those vintage adventures has gotten my interested again in the old movies and I dug out my collection and gave them another viewing. Aside from the few which are in public domain, I've not actually seen these that often and it's been long enough that the details have faded sufficiently to make them solid entertainment all over again. You'd have to really like Sherlock Holmes to enjoy the radio plays, but if you then they might offer a reasonably priced way to get more Sherlock into your life. 

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Planet Of Storms!

Planet of Storms is a Russian sci-fi movie which was picked up by Roger Corman and his team and transformed into not one English-language movie but two. The look of this movie is really sharp, or at least distinctive and conformed quite well with the pulp notions of space travel.

The story takes place on Venus or very near it when three spaceships from Earth approach. At the very beginning of the film one of three ships is utterly destroyed by meteors and the plan to land on Venus appears to be in jeopardy until a replacement can travel from Earth. I'm not all that certain what this plan was but it creates the need for innovation and as a result two men and a really smart looking robot descend  to the planet leaving a lone woman in orbit to effect their later removal. That goes haywire and then the other ship descends completely in order to help the first party. They then work to find one another, traveling across a landscape of rocks, steam, water and dinosaur-like creatures. They also fight off lizard-men of a sort but almost no attention is paid to the nature of their society if any. The two teams finds one another and eventually lift off, though there are casualties. They find evidence of sophisticated life, but miss living creatures by just this much.

This movie gets lifted by Corman and has some Earth-control scenes added with veteran Basil Rathbone who doesn't really add to the narrative and how could he really. But his name is a lure. Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet is still mostly the same movie, with the same dudes struggling on the same planet, but this time in delightfully dubbed English.

Then the same movie is lifted by Corman's team again and framing scenes featuring a tribe of mute women led by an aging blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren which attempt poorly to give the story a fresh context by adding the oddball allure of a telepathic romance between a character from the original and the added Mamie.

All three of these variations can be found on The Roger Corman Russian Sci-Fi Collection. It's got a fantastic cover and presents the movies more or less in their raw forms. There is a commentary on one which is quite informative. But there's still one to go.

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The Creeper!

This a review originally concocted nearly a decade ago. There will be an update following the vintage material.

I watched The Brute Man, a vintage classic flick made by Universal, but released by PRC starring Rondo Hatton, the tragic film "star" who was afflicted with acromegaly, the infamous disease that dramatically disfigures the victim. Hatton is now famous, or I should say his distinctive face is famous, having been borrowed a few times over the years. I watched him on screen as "The Creeper" in the Sherlock Holmes movie The Pearl of Death featuring Basil Rathbone. Hatton plays a silent killer who despite his distinctive looks moves around largely unnoticed and breaks the backs of his victims.

He shows up again as the The Creeper in House of Horrors which I've not seen, and finally in The Brute Man where he is the lead as the character for the first time. Sadly he died mere months after completing the movie, and according to some reports that's at least part of the reason Universal delayed then got rid of the movie.

I can't say it's a great movie by any stretch, nor in all fairness can I say that Hatton is a stellar actor. He's adequate, but there's no doubt that his most memorable scenes are those in which he is silent and his unique face shows what he's feeling, whether it's rage or remorse or even on occasion a hint of romance.

Careful as there are spoilers below.

The story of The Brute Man begins quickly with several murders by The Creeper (in this movie a guy named Hal Moffat) having all ready occurred. We see The Creeper shuffling down the street striking terror in the hearts of those who encounter him, and we see him confront and apparently kill a lovely woman who seems to know him, or at least knew him at one time. There's more hectic police action with some cops who seem really not all that swept up in the severity of the crimes. The attempts at humor by the police characters is one of the factors that undermines the atmosphere of this flick. Anyway, The Creeper goes on about his grisly way encountering an understanding girl who is obviously blind but that's a fact no one seems to realize. Her kindness shows a different side of Moffat, but it's not enough to stop his killing. He kills a nosy grocery delivery boy, then a jeweler, and on and on.

We eventually find out that he was a star footballer, but a man with a temper who suffered an chemical accident and left college and his friends and became the killer we now see. He confronts his friends and kills one before getting shot and returning to the blind girl. She unwittingly tries to sell some jewels he stole and the police inform her who her friend is. She helps to capture him and he turns even on her and that's his downfall.

The final climax of this movie is very disappointing, as he's just hauled off and we really just have to assume that justice will work its way. But the story has an odd blunted quality, and is a bit unsatisfactory.

One idea that occurs to me is the way in which despite a dragnet, The Creeper lumbers around the city largely unnoticed. It is perhaps too much to think the movie makers did this intentionally as it likely was just necessitated by plot requirements, but it does say something about The Creeper's ugliness making him something that people won't look at, won't confront, and so don't see. He seems at times in the story to be hiding in plain sight and almost has to invite people to see him, as if they cannot do it alone. Again I don't think this is intentional, but it does give The Creeper a more mysterious aspect.

I am happy to have seen this movie, but it's not a classic by any means. Though I will admit it's worth seeing if just for those moments of dread created by Hatton when he's in full threat mode. I was surprised to see that Hatton was much shorter than I thought. The earlier Holmes movie really made him seem a giant, but it's clear here that he's of normal height and even shorter than some of the other actors.

I cannot really recommend it completely save for its curiosity value alas.

UPDATE: This review is from nearly a decade ago. I fished up from the depths of the Dojo because I have a long last finally seen the third Creeper movie -- House of Horrors. Alas it's not all that good, but still and all it's nifty to finally see this bit of cinematic lore. The story concerns a deranged sculptor who finds the Creeper in the river (the action in his movie is supposed to come after that in The Brute Man according to some sources). He then realizes that with a little prodding he can get his new ally to kill for him and so gain revenge on art critics who in his mind keep him down.

The movie is a bit of a shambles when Rondo Hatton is not on the screen and becomes more of a comedy than anything else. The classic character of the wise-cracking reporter has been spread among all the cast save for the mad artist played by an intense Martin Kosleck and the Creeper. Another artist, his critic girlfriend and the cops all seem to want to make jokes, even in the most dire circumstances. Our "hero" even tries to strangle someone in the movie, a weird out of character moment meant only to move the plot I guess. The movie is ham-handed with a few truly weird and creepy moments sprinkled in. It's only for the Rondo Hatton fans, but then I'm one of those.

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The Black Sleep!

The Black Sleep has been that one horror flick which has eluded me for years and years. Until recently, I'd never seen this final stab at classic horror by some of the screen's classic names. You'd think a movie loaded with the likes of Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, John Carradine, and even Tor Johnson would be a true horror pleasure. But you'd be wrong.

Despite an amazing assembly of talent, including the lead villain Basil Rathbone, this movie rarely gathers any momentum and just when it does, it stifles it with an abrupt and truncated finale which only serves to tie up loose ends and not all of those really.

The story is really rather a simple one. A mad scientist (Rathbone) in a deluded attempt to save his comatose wife who needs brain surgery assembles  a cadre of practice patients to do brain surgery upon. He works through a local tattoo artist and body snatcher and uses two nurses (one loyal and one not) along with another doctor who he has helped escape the gallows. This team of specialists wander around a classic castle filled with dungeons and operating rooms hidden behind giant fireplaces. Eventually his subjects get loose and all hell breaks loose.

The biggest problem with this movie is that despite a large ensemble cast, most of the actors don't actually talk or say much of anything of interest. Only four characters have much to do and much of that makes little sense in the long term. Much of the screen time in the middle of the movie is taken up with mind-numbing talk about the physiology of the brain with charts and posters and such used as static visual guides. 

I've waited many years to see this movie and frankly despite the grand cast it was disappointing. A missed opportunity to get some great stuff from some infamous actors falls into the trap of merely trading on their names for an advertising stunt. It was truly unfortunate.

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The Brute Man!

I watched this vintage classic flick made by Universal, but released by PRC starring Rondo Hatton, the tragic film "star" who was afflicted with acromegalia, the infamous disease that disfigures the victim. Hatton is now famous, or I should say his distinctive face is famous, having been borrowed a few times over the years.


I watched him on screen as "The Creeper" in the Sherlock Holmes movie featuring Basil Rathbone. Hatton plays a silent killer who despite his distinctive looks moves around largely unnoticed and breaks the backs of his victims. He shows up again as the The Creeper in House of Horrors which I've not seen, and finally in The Brute Man where he is the lead as the character for the first time. Sadly he died mere months after completing the movie, and according to some reports that's at least part of the reason Universal delayed then got rid of the movie.


I can't say it's a great movie by any stretch, nor in all fairness can I say that Hatton is a stellar actor. He's adequate, but there's no doubt that his most memorable scenes are those in which he is silent and his unique face shows what he's feeling, whether it's rage or remorse or even on occasion a hint of romance.

Careful as there are spoilers below.


The story of The Brute Man begins quickly with several murders by The Creeper (in this movie a guy named Hal Moffat) having all ready occurred. We see The Creeper shuffling down the street striking terror in the hearts of those who encounter him, and we see him confront and apparently kill a lovely woman who seems to know him, or at least knew him at one time. There's more hectic police action with some cops who seem really not all that swept up in the severity of the crimes. The attempts at humor by the police characters is one of the factors that undermines the atmosphere of this flick. Anyway, The Creeper goes on about his grisly way encountering an understanding girl who is obviously blind but that's a fact no one seems to realize. Her kindness shows a different side of Moffat, but it's not enough to stop his killing. He kills a nosy grocery delivery boy, then a jeweler, and on and on.

We eventually find out that he was a star footballer, but a man with a temper who suffered an chemical accident and left college and his friends and became the killer we now see. He confronts his friends and kills one before getting shot and returning to the blind girl. She unwittingly tries to sell some jewels he stole and the police inform her who her friend is. She helps to capture him and he turns even on her and that's his downfall.

The final climax of this movie is very disappointing, as he's just hauled off and we really just have to assume that justice will work its way. But the story has an odd blunted quality, and is a bit unsatisfactory.

One idea that occurs to me is the way in which despite a dragnet, The Creeper lumbers around the city largely unnoticed. It is perhaps too much to think the movie makers did this intentionally as it likely was just necessitated by plot requirements, but it does say something about The Creeper's ugliness making him something that people won't look at, won't confront, and so don't see. He seems at times in the story to be hiding in plain sight and almost has to invite people to see him, as if they cannot do it alone. Again I don't think this is intentional, but it does give The Creeper a more mysterious aspect.

I am happy to have seen this movie, but it's not a classic by any means. Though I will admit it's worth seeing if just for those moments of dread created by Hatton when he's in full threat mode. I was surprised to see that Hatton was much shorter than I thought. The earlier Holmes movie really made him seem a giant, but it's clear here that he's of normal height and even shorter than some of the other actors.

I cannot really recommend it completely save for its curiosity value alas.

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Robin Hood!

I picked up a few months back a wonderful DVD of Errol Flynn's The Adventures of Robin Hood. It's one of those DVD sets that takes full advantage of the format to offer up a wide array of interesting, enlightening and entertaining extras. There's a whole faux-afternoon of film-going experience with a trailer, a cartoon, a newsreel, and a short film. There's background on the creation of the movie, the 1922Robin Hood movie with Douglas Fairbanks, and a delightfully detailed commentary. There are two classic cartoons with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck both lampooning the Robin Hood story. There's a Flynn trailer library and features on the invention of Technicolor. A great tasty collection not even mentioning a colorful presentation of this classic adventure story. Errol Flynn as Robin and Basil Rathbone as Guy of Gisborne might just be the finest hero-villain casting in the history of film. They are perfect in their roles and their swordfight is in my all-time top ten list of fave movie moments. I've long had a still of the classic duel which is tucked away in a box right now, but has historically been in my office.

At the same time I picked this flick up I got hold of a Border's reproduction of Howard Pyle's classic The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. It's a pretty little book. All this Robin Hood thinking got me to remembering one of the earliest Classics Illustrated volumes I ever owned featuring the adventures of the outlaw from Sherwood. It's a solid comic adventure with a lush cover image clearly inspired by Errol Flynn's definitive version from the movie and some worthwhile artwork and storytelling inside. If you've never sampled Classic Illustrated before, this is a good one to begin with.

Now I'm hankering to see more Flynn. I've got Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk on VHS, but I'd love to see if there are quality DVD verisons with some great features out there. If ever there was an actor who brought the zeitgeist of the "superhero" to the big screen it was Flynn, a larger-than-life personality who could play the bejeezus out of any large role he was given. And Robin Hood, star of many a comic book, and the inspiration for such hardcase "superheroes" as Green Arrow and Hawkeye the Marksman is certainly a larger-than-life role.

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