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Today’s Essential Movies are going to cover the historical movies (that may or may not have an actual historical basis) with a setting prior to 1500. As always, these are the movies that I find entertaining and enjoyable enough to watch over and over again.
I’m going to start today with all the various Robin Hood movies. First and foremost of these is The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Claude Rains, and Basil Rathbone. This is the one by which all other Robin Hood movies are judged and is just a fine story. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is also a fun movie but more because of Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham than for Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood. A victim of bad timing is Robin Hood with Patrick Bergin as Robin and Uma Thurman as Maid Marian. A little darker in many ways than the others. And of course, there is always Mel Brook’s take through Robin Hood: Men In Tights. I have not yet seen the most recent Robin Hood with Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett as Robin and Marian. Finally there is Robin and Marian with Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn with an interesting “ever after” spin.
I guess I tend to group movies around certain times in history for some reason and here are a few others from the supposed time of Robin Hood that continue to entertain me. First of these is Ivanhoe. Of course, Robin Hood makes an appearance but the main thrust is Norman versus Saxon while King Richard was away at the Crusades. A couple of other Crusades related films I’ve enjoyed are Kingdom of Heaven and King Richard and the Crusaders. The former is probably a bit more historically accurate in many ways than the latter but as I’ve stated previously, I’m not really looking so much for historical accuracy as I am a good tale told well. El Cid is another of these although a little earlier than the others. My last movie for this particular period is The Lion in Winter. For some reason, I’ve always had a fascination for Queen Eleanor of Aquitane and Kate Hepburn brings her to life.
Hollywood used to make great epic pictures, especially around great people or events through history. Many of us grew up watching The Ten Commandments on TV around Easter each year. Or Ben Hur. I’m still as likely to watch either of these if they’re on as most anything else presented at the same time. Spartacus as well. Cleopatra may have been one of the last great epic films. If not Cleopatra, then it was The Fall of the Roman Empire. I do have to say, that although it was not an epic in the style of the old Hollywood, Russell Crowe’s Gladiator is one I find enjoyable over and over again as well. . . .
While I’ve always enjoyed the stories of King Arthur, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table there aren’t near as many movies that I’ve enjoyed from this period as there have been of the King Richard and Robin Hood times. Of course, the movies Camelot and Knights of the Round Table are on this short list. Prince Valiant is also a fun watch for me as is First Knight. And Monty Python and the Holy Grail of course.
Next week I will hit the Historical movies set after 1500 through 1900. Previously I have posted Essential Movies as an introduction and Essential Movies (Westerns).
And because I can:
24 Comments
I loved all these movies and there is only ONE Robin Hood – Errol Flynn. :)
Ditto, I loved nearly all of them, too.
My kid can recite Monty Python and the Holy Grail line for line, word for word, too, so we have some new converts on some of these flicks.
There are a few others I’d add, but there are so many I’m struggling to put them in order. Two off the top of my head:
– Franco Zeferelli’s Romeo and Juliet (Leonard Whiting was his generation’s Zac Efron);
– 300, in spite of the gratuitous violence;
– Braveheart, in spite of that bigot Mel Gibson;
– and as an odd film which spans a thousand years, its earliest “flashback” pushing the window on this category, I’d pick The Fountain. Definitely not for everybody.
– to round out the short list and add a bit more diversity, I’d pick Hero. Absolutely gorgeous film and so moving.
Orson Welles, Macbeth.
An incredible movie, with Orson Welles as Macbeth at the height of his abilities as an actor. I’ll never forgive my sophomore English teacher for not at least telling us about this production when we had to read Macbeth.
Yeah, I missed 300 and Braveheart as well. Plus The Black Rose (Tyrone Power and Orson Welles)
The Black Rose was great. You should try to find it.
Oh I’ve seen The Black Rose a number of times – I just forgot to mention it in the post.
I don’t really care for the Hollywood movies of ancient Rome; Tony Curtis with the Brooklyn accent, Liz Taylor with the heavy eye shadow and cleavage. To me, the only thing about that era worth watching is the BBC classic, “I, Claudius” with Erek Jacobi and John Hurt.
The films set in historical Britain are an improvement-besides “The Lion in Winter”, there is the excellent “A Man for All Seasons”.
And of course, I love Camelot and The Adventures of Robin Hood, even if they’re not historically accurate. Camelot for the music, and Robin Hood for the obviously leftist political subtext. Michael Curtiz’s other films with Errol Flynn, “The Sea Hawk” which is set in the Elizabethan era, and “Captain Blood” are also great. He knew how to make a swashbuckler.
Sorry for the type, “Derek” Jacobi.
I would like to mention Virgin Spring and The Seventh Seal. Both are Ingmar Bergman films, and, therefore, great. (B&W)
Ingrid Bergman was Joan of Arc. I was very young when I saw the movie and fell in love with her forever. (C)
Ingmar Bergman made a movie of The Magic Flute, including some behind the scenes parts. This is set in a mythical past. (C)
Richard Burton was cast as Alexander the Great, and, I believe, Fredric March was Philip. Claire Bloom and Danielle Darrieux are also in the cast. (B&W)
Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk are part of next week’s post. :})
I left out a movie: The Thirteenth Warrior. A highly born Arab (Antonio Banderas) must accompany a group of a dozen Norsemen to their home to fight the Bear people. He can’t speak their language but learns. Their are several continuity problems, but it is a fun watch.
I know this is OT, but I just saw your westerns post. Anyway, I’m usually last in a thread, so nobody will see this. You left out some important westerns: Red River, Stagecoach, Winchester ’73, and the Plainsman.
The finest historical drama of all time had to be,” The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean.” Close behind,” The Vikings.” I will never forget watching Kirk Douglas dancing on the oars of his Long Skip. For a realistic movie about what it is to fly combat you can`t beat ” Memphis Belle.” The navigator reminded me of me. Marlon Brando in ” Julius Caesar.” Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.
Zenostoa
I think you have a typo. “Long Skip? s/b long ship?
Ah, I’d completely forgotten Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Arc; I loved that version as a kid.
Now, though, I prefer Milla Jovavich in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc; what a quirky, intense movie. Only one thing wrong with it, a real shame — miscasting of Dustin Hoffman as “The Conscience.” But I can overlook this given Luc Besson’s direction.
And of course the music for the Flynn swashbucklers was done by the incomparable Korngold.
That was the film version of Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead.
By the way, Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn really did fall for one another; but Flynn at any rate swore to the end of his days that he never tried to seduce her as she was just so impossibly upright and stainless in his eyes, and he knew he could never risk breaking her heart by marrying her and then (as he inevitably would) cheating on her.
Richard Burton was “Becket” and Peter O’Toole was Henry II, in color. Robert Bresson made “Lancelot of the Lake” in French and in color. Carl Dreyer made a silent “Passion of Joan of Arc.” The Germans filmed their legends in the 1920s, so there is “Siegfried” by Fritz Lang and “Faust” by F.W. Murnau, both silent. There is also “Alexander Nevsky” by Sergei Eisenstein, in Russian. Akira Kurosawa made “Rashomon” which is set much earlier than his “Seven Samurai,” which I believe is set in the period of disorder and civil war preceding the Tokugawa shogunate, beginning 1603. Both in Japanese. Orson Welles made “Chimes at Midnight,” in which he is Sir John Falstaff.
Richard Egan (as Leonidas) and Ralph Richardson starred in “The 300 Spartans” in 1962. Directed by Rudolph Mate who directed “D.O.A.” and was cinematographer on “The Passion of Joan of Arc.”
Roberto Rossellini made “The Flowers of St. Francis” (1950), dramatizing incidents in the life of Francis of Assisi, in Italian. There is “The Name of the Rose,” starring Sean Connery, and “Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan” (2007), the 1st part of a so far unfinished trilogy, in Mongolian? Mandarin? Kurosawa made “Throne of Blood,” which is “Macbeth,” starring Toshiro Mifune as Macbeth, in Japanese.
I was using the Old Norse term for the modern English word ship. Even today the leader of a boat crew is called Skipper not shipper.Having attended a Junior College I have my pretentions.
Zenostoa
John Wayne and Maureen in ” The Conqueror.” Two of the whitest folks on the planet playing Mongolians on the grounds of an atomic test site in Nevada. Cancer has struck down an incredible number of the folks that made the worst historical drama of all time.
Zenostoa
Uh, Maureen O’Hara was NOT in The Conqueror. Susan Hayward played “The Tartar woman” and Agnes Moorhead played Wayne’s mother.
Be patient. There are a whole lot of movies yet to come, including a week dedicated to bad movies such as The Conqueror