Blues in the Green

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938):
Starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland
Directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley
(103 min.)
Technicolor

Robin Hood leads Maid Marian through the green of Sherwood, away from the reveling of his Merry Men. The merriment belies their business of taking care of the poor.

He is strange to her, she says, not because of his anger at the tyrannical and bloody discrimination of the Normans against the Saxons, but because he actually does something about it. "You must hate the Normans," she says.

"Norman or Saxon, what does it matter?" replies Robin. "It's injustice I hate."

This scene comes and goes quietly about half-way through what's remembered mainly as a simple swashbuckling adventure story, based on the old English legends of the laughing outlaw who robs from the rich to give to the poor. A swashbuckler, though, is not only an adventurous daredevil, but also a laughing braggart.

Robin Hood, then, stands cocky in a similar light to the characters most frequently found in the music of the blues: a Mannish Boy. He has to laugh to keep from crying.

A Technicolor blues.