Quote Originally Posted by Jim Kelly View Post
Challenge accepted. I've watched THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD before, of course (it's one of those movies that everyone has to watch), but I never paid that much attention to the music or the production. Wikipedia says that John Williams cited Erich Wolfgang Korngold as his inspiration for the Star Wars scores.

This was Warner Bros. first big budget Technicolor production--and the colours really pop on the screen. The art direction makes me think of Hal Foster's Prince Valiant work from the 1930s--and I imagine that would have been an influence. There is an unmistakable Star Wars aspect to the plot--each time Maid Marian is on screen she makes me think of Princess Leia. The wardrobe department went crazy with the outfits they gave Olivia De Havilland.

A nice companion to this movie would be THE COURT JESTER--which was likely parodying a lot from this movie and other Errol Flynn swashbuckling films. Basil Rathbone's sword fights at the end of both movies have a lot in common.
Rathbone supposedly said that when he made the Court Jester, Danny Kaye was the best naturally gifted on screen opponent he’d ever met, able to basically copy any of the moves they had to make just by watching Rathbone himself do them once... or alternatively, that Kaye was the first on-screen opponent who was too fast for Rathbone to keep up with at 63, so the instructor had to stand in for him a few times.

Though in hindsight, the fact that a great duelist like Rathbone barely ever got to win any of his on-screen fights is a shame.