Adventures in Movieland

The Sea Hawk (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

Friday film night last week included another episode of Tutti Frutti and Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawk. The evening finished with another short feature from the extras on The Sea Hawk.

As has become customary, the evening was accompanied by an excellent Melton Mowbray pork pie and a glass of beer.

Tutti Frutti continued to live up to, and even surpass, our happy memories of the writing and the brilliant cast. This was where Arthur and I first concieved our love for Emma Thompson/Suzy Kettles, and Robbie Coltrane and Richard Wilson first came to my notice. The whole cast is excellent however.

The Sea Hawk arrived, I think, because I was talking about it not so long ago, in the context of our work reminiscences - No I wasn't attacked by pirates but I did meet "Queen Elizabeth I" on a few occasions when I had the honour to serve Flora Robson.

I have always loved The Sea Hawk  and whenever I play a pirate board game the Korngold score goes through my head - Da da-da da Strike for the shores of Dover! It had lost nothing of its magic for me and I thoroughly enjoyed Flynn's frantic swordplay and apparent hatred of candles again, not to mention the rest of the merry cast - Claude Raines Alan Hale and many more favourite character actors of the era. The Technicolor majesty of Robin Hood perhaps tips the balance in its favour as my favourite Flynn film but this is still a gem and something of an epic with a lot of money spent on replica ships etc.

Image via Wikipedia

I couldn't resist having a look at what was on offer in the extras, as my copy of The Adventures of Robin Hood offers a whole 1938 evening at the cinema with short features, cartoon etc. This didn't disappoint and we clicked on Alice in Movieland and watched a twenty-minute short subject (written apparently by Ed Sullivan) about a naive young girl's attempt to break into movie stardom. Alice Purdee is played by Joan Leslie who, if not a big star, did make it herself into some big films of the forties. It's a corny little fable but an ideal short to make up our programme and brief appearances by some of Joan's fellow Warner contract players, including Jane Wyman and her companion Ronald Reagan kept us amused.