Olivia @ 100: The Adventures of Robin Hood
Thursday, June 16, 2016 at 2:30PM 
We're counting down to Olivia de Havilland's historic 100th birthday (July 1st!). Team Experience will be looking at highlights and curiosities from her career. Here's Dancin Dan...
Has Olivia de Havilland ever looked more beautiful than in 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood? Surely her apple-cheeked, wide-eyed beauty was never set off better than in the fabulous succession of head scarves she wore as Maid Marian.
And the costumes themselves are just gorgeous, too. Why modern-day Renaissance Faires aren't full to bursting with ladies busting out Olivia-as-Marian cosplay, I'll never know. Except for the fact that maybe Milo Anderson's costumes are too uniquely fabulous to ever be copied well. (Sadly, there were no Oscars for costumes until the late 1940s else he might have won for this)
Brocade!
Liquid silver!
Even in black & white these costumes are gorgeous.
And this wouldn't be a true beauty break without Errol Flynn in the role he was born to play (SWOON), so:
This was the third of eight films the two made together, and you can tell they were into a groove with each other. The chemistry simply crackles.
...and now I want to see the two of them in Romeo & Juliet. I bet they'd be smashing!
Reader Comments (10)
No lie, the first thing I thought of when I saw these pics was that Joan Fontaine also looked great in Medieval costumes (Ivanhoe).
I also loved the way Olivia looked in Light in the Piazza, but honestly everyone and everything looked great in that film.
I am THRILLED for her.. I remember rooting and rooting for Luise Rainer to live well past 100 and she did. Here's to you, Olivia!!
David -- i believe the latest is she has claimed that she intends to live to be 110 years old.
Cash -- i believe someone chose Light in the Piazza so we'll get an article on that.
The costumes are astonishing and the headdresses incredible. I remember reading somewhere that having her head covered throughout the picture was a purposeful choice outside of its authenticity to the period. It was meant to suggest that she was always on her guard and sheltered until Robin showed up at her window when she symbolically let her defenses and her hair down to him.
It's hardly the best role she ever had, though Maid Marian is a strong woman, but probably her best pairing with Flynn with Dodge City a close second. The film is a visual treat outside of their pairing as well, though my heart goes out to Claude Rains stuck in that Prince Valiant wig.
The main thing I'm thinking about is how gorgeous their babies would be.
Happy Birthday Olivia, and I love this film. Great wardrobe and great chemistry with Errol Flynn.
I'm reading A Touch of Stardust now (about the making of Gone With The Wind among other things), and it's so wierd to think that all the rest of them are long dead but Olivia just keeps going on. I mean she outlived Leslie Howard by, what, 70+ years, and even Vivien and Gable by 50ish.
The first time I ever saw her was in Robin Hood ( I was introduced to Errol Flynn long before I had heard of GWTW)
The costumes;the shimmering,form fitting,chaste and sexy.......more than any other actress in a period movie she belonged in these robes!
I ADORE this film! I am far too old - having seen thousands of films - to go in for naming favorites or best-of lists, but if you put a gun to my head, I might just admit that The Adventures of Robin Hood is my favorite movie. The storybook Technicolor! The Korngold score! The definitive Robin in Errol Flynn! The wonderful duels, chases, and character interplay! A screenplay that cobbles the old legends into a great political oppression/revolution story AND an amazing romance!
While the casting is absolutely perfect from top to bottom, Olivia is nearly the film's MVP. And not just because she is so ethereally beautiful in those costumes. When Robin walks her through the Saxon refugees he's sheltering in Sherwood, her delivery of, "I do begin to see... a little, now." knocks me off the couch every time!
My favorite performance by Olivia - sorry, Mellie!
Curiously, two of her best perfs are still not available on DVD. "My Cousin Rachel," and "To Each His Own."
Good news: TCM is showing BOTH of these in July.