Remember, Even Doug Fairbanks Got the Costner Treatment

For months, Calendar has been complaining that Kevin Costner is completely miscast as Robin Hood, that he fails to honor the glorious tradition of Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn, that he’s far too modern in his approach, and so forth.

Latest such item: “No, We Did Not Expect Howard Hawks, but We Did Expect You to Hate It” (Film Clips, July 28).

Just for the record, in its February, 1923, review of the Fairbanks version, Photoplay magazine stated: “At no time does Doug seem Robin Hood. He is always a 20th-Century Fairbanks, although he puts such a sense of enjoying himself into the proceedings that one almost forgets this fact.”

I can already see a review of the 2060 version: “Daniel Dashing doesn’t compare with Costner, Flynn or Fairbanks. He is much too modern in his approach.” What would we be without good old nostalgia in all its deceptive colors?

STEVE ARNST

Los Angeles