In the classic period of American cinema, various types of action and adventure films were created, some of which achieved a clear universal status (mainly westerns, gangster and war films). Setting aside these familiar action films for the moment, we could consider the historical adventure film as the central manifestation of action and adventure in classic cinema. In his comprehensive study of the genre, Brian Taves suggests that historical adventures consist of five main types, which are related to the location or activity associated with the protagonists: the daredevil, the pirate, the sea, the empire and the fortune hunter. Of these, the most famous is the swashbuckler, an adventure form associated with a hero who fights against unjust authority by displaying fighting skills in extravagant swordplay scenes, often combined with verbal wit. Errol Flynn (1909-1959), first as an eponymous hero in Captain Blood and later in titles such as The Attack of the Light Brigade (1936) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). In the latter, both a commercial and critical success, Flynn again played the female lead, Olivia de Havilland (b. 1916). This technical epic with its breathtaking sets and battle scenes is based on Fairbanks’ silent period successes. Flynn Goode is ironic, scaling walls and fighting in trees, at tables and on stairs, suggesting that the hero is equally at home in both natural and artificial environments. Robin’s good looks, genuine good humour and fighting skills position him as one of the people and a leader of the people, his virtues contrasting with the inactive condescension of the majority ruling class he opposes.
Many adventure films depict their heroes traveling to or through geographically and culturally remote landscapes. Whether explicitly represented as the space of empire or simply evoked as primitive, non-Western (“other”) worlds, adventure space usually exists to be conquered or mastered in some way. Its inhabitants are defined as inferior and/or dangerous to the white/western adventurers who enter these places. “The Lost World” with its events in the Amazon can be framed in this way, as well as various adaptations by H. Rider Haggard, such as “Her” (1935) and “King Solomon’s Mines” (both novels have been filmed several times, the latter again in 2004). Perhaps the most famous character that functions in this type of adventure space is Tarzan, a character that was first filmed in the silent period (“Tarzan of the Apes”, 1918) and for decades formed the cinematic basis of the adventure film. Former Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller (1904-1984) played Tarzan in a series of films beginning with Tarzan of the Apes (1932); subsequently, a number of other male stars and athletes portrayed the character in films containing action scenes, adventure settings, and legal contexts in which nearly nude bodies were displayed. The long cinematic success of the Tarzan story can be understood in terms of its use of a series of key action and adventure elements that reassured audiences of white male dominance in an African landscape defined by its remoteness and racial difference.
Errol Flynn is the Hollywood star most associated with the historical adventure genre at the peak of this cycle’s popularity. His good looks and athletic performance began to define the romantic masculine energy of the daredevil.
Flynn’s most successful and influential films were made at the beginning of his career as a leading actor. “Captain Blood” (1935), which made Flynn a star and set the stage for his later image, was the first of several collaborations with director Michael Curtiz and Olivia de Havilland, who starred in it. He plays Peter Blood, a doctor-turned-fighter who is sold into slavery by a tyrannical English monarch, escapes with his fellow captives to escape slavery to a life of piracy, and finally regains his position and marries his former owner (de Havilland) when the monarchy changes – the archetypal redeemed outcast.
Flynn has appeared in a variety of genre films including westerns and war films, melodramas and comedies. Early in his career, he demonstrated dramatic versatility in the updated World War I aviation drama “Dawn Patrol” (1938), but Flynn’s star popularity is associated with the stunning roles he played in Warner Bros. historical adventures.