Robin Hood 1938 - Errol Flynn
When you look on Amazon for reviews of the 1938 Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, you get 5-star after 5-star praising its techincolor lushness and the chemistry between Flynn and deHavilland. But how does this movie fare as a portrayal of medieval times?
It's fairly clear that this movie was aiming for a "kid-friendly storybook" angle to the story rather than a serious, gritty, real life view. There were certainly other movies in the 1930s which were gritty and adult-oriented, so it wasn't that the people in the 1930s were unable to make serious movies. It's simply that for this one they wanted to keep it light, cute, and playful. So the villans are pure evil, the heroes are pure good, and the costumes are made from velour.
While this is certainly a fun movie for many other reasons, I wouldn't recommend watching this to get an authentic idea of what medieval folk dressed like or the way their world was. Their costumes in here are all not only pristine but are like "Halloween costumes" - made with shimmery fabrics and shiny add-ons. This isn't the way people dressed in medieval times. Modern versions of Robin Hood do a much better job from this point of view of researching and portraying the clothing accurately.
Also, the swordfighting shown here is more "play" style noisy-and-wild swordfighting instead of actual serious attack-and-defense. In many of the sequences the two characters simply bash at each other's swords without making any attempt to actually hit the other person.
And in one funny scene, Robin Hood lands a hit on his opponent's sword and Robin's sword bends! Swords weren't *that* flimsy in medieval times :).
It's also a bit disappointing that I think the only two females who talk in the entire movie are Marian and her maid. There were, in fact, females in medieval times and they were strong characters. They had to be to survive medieval life, and with the men mostly off at the crusades, they had a fair amount of power, too. The movie makes it seem like only men were out doing things. The women must have all hid away in cottages :).
So I'd avoid this one in terms of getting ideas about authentic medieval life. There are plenty of other movies out there to choose from who tackle the task quite well!
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