Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1938)

44 MOTION PICTURE HERALD April 3 0, 193 8 SHOWMEN'S REVIEWS This department deals with new product from the point of view of the exhibitor who is to purvey it to his own public Adventures of Robin Hood (Warner Brothers) Historical Spectacle This is what might be called an exploitation man's dream. It is such a picture as that master of box office salesmanship, A-Mike Vogel, might write a book about and still have enough ideas left over to float a brace of merely first grade attractions. No lesser pen than that swung by the genial chairman of the Managers' Round Table is qualified to tell Motion Picture Herald subscribers the whole truth about this complete answer to the practical showman's prayer. The exploitation story of "Robin Hood" is well along in the writing, however, ere now. S. Charles Einf eld's able gentlemen of the public relations department have been as busy as the valiant men of Sherwood Forest at keeping the public aware of what the picture is all about and how to know when it's coming to town. Devices and expedients employed in its behalf have been singularly of a kind with those which an industrious and perspicacious showman might have dreamed up for his personal use. The printed matter pertaining to it has been fashioned with rare fidelity to the manner and period of the picture. The archery tournament at Palm Springs on Sunday last provided practical precedent for a stunt that cries aloud to be duplicated locally in every community, and established proof of its exploitation potency. Publicity disseminated via magazine and newspaper channels has been grooved to the style and tone of the production as accurately as the story of the altruistic nobleman who took from the rich to give to the poor is grooved to the mass mood of 1938. Mr. Einfeld's merry men have got the picture off to a running start. W. G. Van Schmus' expert retailers of superlative entertainment may be counted upon to give it tremendous additional impetus when he spreads it upon the Radio City Music Hall's great screen. It could coast the rest of the way to its first million, but it generates enough momentum of its own to make two a conservative forecast. The story of "Robin Hood" is rather too well known to require synopsis. The popularity of the theme in this generation is manifest. The treatment of that then could have been woefully miscalculated. It was not. There is no hint or trace of social, political or economic preachment. Sympathy is on the side of the poor, as in the legends from which Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller drew their screenplay. But the hero is presented as attacking only the specific injustice, avarice and persecution practiced by a definite group of persons who happen, as does he, to be of noble birth. Associate producer Henry Blanke, directors Michael Curtiz, and William Keighley, executive producer Hal Wallis, and dialogue director Irving Rapper have seen to it that there is no arraying of class against class. They also have seen to it that the picture contains no word, gesture or scene to bring any flush save that of pleasure to any cheek. Probably not even the Music Hall's spacious marquee is big enough for all its three-street exposure, to contain all the display-worthy names in the cast. They are listed below and so well is the burden distributed among them that any showman anywhere is safe in picking out for emphasis the half dozen that sell best in his community. Errol Flynn's "Robin Hood" is more credible and no less stimulating than Douglas Fairbanks' was. Olivia de Haviland's "Maid Marian" is a rare blending of sheer beauty and consummate acting. Basil Rathbone's "Sir Guy" and Claude Rains' "Prince John" are masterly studies in evil. The others are as successful in their widely varied chores. It is, of course, routine exploitation procedure nowadays to let the customers know that the picture is in full color, but in this case there is reason to go further. A showman would be quite safe in proclaiming this the finest example of applied pigmentation yet to reach the screen and to name W. Howard Greene, color photographer, with Cameramen Tony Gaudio and Sol Polito, as responsible for the most brilliant, artistic and realistic use of the process to date. The picture opens briskly and the pace never lags. It is packed with exciting incident, thrilling combat, entrapment, escape, flight, pursuit, honest adventure and no revenge. It is magnificently staged and superbly coordinated. It is, we repeat, the complete answer to the practical showman's prayer. Previewed at the Warner Hollywood theatre to an ovation likely to be duplicated across this broad land and all the others. — William R. Weaver. Produced and distributed by Warner-First National. Associate producer, Henry Blanke. Original screen play by ISlorman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller. Directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley. Assistant directors, Leeman Katz and Jack Sullivan. Photographed by Sol Polito and Tony Gaudio. Technicolor color director, Natalie Kalmus. Technicolor photographic advisor, Howard Green. Joust scenes directed by B. Reeves Eason. Art director, Carl Jules Weyl. Film editor, Ralph Dawson. Sound, C. A. Riggs. Costumes by Milo Anderson. Technical advisor, Van Den Ecker. Unit manager, Al Alborn. Publicity men, Edward Selzer and Robert Burkhardt. Music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. P. C. A. Certificate No. 3790. Running time, when seen in Hollywood, 102 minutes. Release date. May 14, 1938. General audience classification. CAST Robin Hood Errol Flynn Maid Marian Olivia de Havilland King Richard Ian Hunter Prince John Claude Rains Sir Guy Basil Rathbone Will Scarlett Patric Knowles Little John Alan Hale Friar Tuck Eugene Pallette Much Herbert Mundin High Sheriff Melville Cooper Bess Una O'Connor Sir Essex Melville Cooper Sir Guy's Squire Martin Lamont Sheriff's Squire Hal Brazealle flvo Henderson Richard's Knights J Joh,n Sutton 1 Jack Deery (.Paul Power fVal Stanton Ernie Stanton Olaf Hytten Alec Harford Peter Hobbes Edward Dew .Sidney Baron Dicken Malbott Harry Cording Bishop of Black Canon Montagu Love Sir Ralf Robert Noble Sir Mortimer Kenneth Hunter Sir Geoffrey Robert Warwick Sir Nigel Leonard Mudie Sir Baldwin Colin Kenny Sir Ivor Lester Matthews Crippen Charles McNaughton Proprietor of Tavern Ivan Simpson Robin's Outlaws « Dr. Rhythm ( Paramount-Cohen) Musical Comedy At the preview in the Los Angeles Paramount theatre, a big house in which press and professional guests made up an audience minority, the paying public composing the majority laughed as hard or harder and as long or longer, hard enough and long enough, in any case to drown out substantial portions of the dialogue. Members of press, profession and public were heard to proclaim it Bing Crosby's best picture and many took in much more territory. Mr. Crosby's radio program has introduced most or all of the songs and at least three are showing signs of hit quality. They are better than that when experienced with settings and gestures and two, "My Heart Is Taking Lessons" and "On the Sentimental Side," are of a kind to be heard just about as consistently when the picture's well down toward repeat date. John Burke and James V. Monaco write them precisely to Bing's measure. In secondary prominence, although dominating the picture every minute she's on, is Beatrice Lillie, fulfilling in this the long promise of her stage success on both sides of the Atlantic. She sings, dances and clowns, but mostly clowns, and in a standout skit by Dion Titheradge she stops the show so conclusively that the rest of the cast, returning in the next sequence, look like strangers. Andy Devine, Sterling Holloway, Franklin Pangborn, Rufe Davis and Fred Keating are others active in the comedy department. Mary Carlisle plays the romantic feminine lead just seriously enough. "Dr. Rhythm" is a modernized version of O. Henry's "The Badge of Policeman O'Roon," prepared for the screen by Jo Swerling and Richard Connell and directed by Frank Tuttle. It was produced by Emanuel Cohen under his recently dissolved contract with Paramount, with Herbert Polesie as associate producer. Dance ensembles of especially effective type are by Jack Crosby, and John Scott Trotter, of the Bing Crosby radio programs, made the musical arrangements. It happens in New York, as of now, and con(Continued on page 46)