A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) Directed by: Michael Curtiz and William Keighley Written by: Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Claude Rains, Basil Rathbone, Alan Hale. Eugene Pallette On May 14, 1938, Warner Bros. Pictures released The Adventures of Robin Hood, a Technicolor action-adventure film starring Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Claude Rains, Basil Rathbone, Alan Hale, and Eugene Pallette. Based on ancient English legends that date as far back as the 1200s, The Adventures of Robin Hood was written by Norman Reilly Raine ( The Life of Emile Zola ) and Seton I. Miller ( Here Comes Mr. Jordan ), from a story treatment by an uncredited Rowland Leigh ( The Charge of the Light Brigade ). The Adventures of Robin Hood was originally assigned by producer Hal B. Wallis to director William Keighly when the project began as a vehicle for James Cagney. When Cagney didn’t take on the role of Robin Hood and w...

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) When I was growing up in the 1970s and early ‘80s, the Miami-area television station which is now CBS4 (WFOR) was located on another place on the VHF dial: Channel Six. Back then, its call letters were WCIX and it was an independent station unattached to any of the Big Three national networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). Before the advent of the Fox TV network and 1989’s “Big Switch,” WCIX used to air a mixed bag of local programming, blocs of syndicated reruns of older TV series (“I Dream of Jeannie,” “Bewitched,” and “Star Trek”), and movies from various decades and of variable quality. Until the VCR Revolution of the mid-1980s, the only way in which most Americans who did not belong to the One Percent could watch movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood was to catch them on indie stations.  WCIX aired them on weekday nights as the 8 PM Movie and on weekends at 1, 3, and 5 in the afternoon. One of the really good movies I saw back the...