Hang on tight, adventure ahead
DURING Hollywood’s heyday, audiences flocked to see action-adventure films, adaptations of famous period novels, pirate tales and historical epics.
These days, the closest movie audiences get to a medieval adventure is “Shrek the Third.” Pirate tales come in the form of CGI fantasies such as “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” and movie adaptations are generally based on contemporary bestsellers such as “The Da Vinci Code.”
The American Cinematheque is going back to the genre’s early romance with the past in “The Spirit of Adventure,” currently at the Egyptian Theatre through July 5 and arriving June 28 at the Aero Theatre. The films screening include the Burt Lancaster lighthearted pirate tales, “The Crimson Pirate” and “The Flame and the Arrow”; three films starring Tyrone Power -- “King of the Khyber Rifles,” “Son of Fury” and “Suez”; “Moonfleet” and “King Solomon’s Mines” with the silver-haired Stewart Granger; and John Huston’s magical deconstruction of the genre, “The Man Who Would Be King.”
USC film professor Rick Jewell believes audiences clamored for these films because people were more interested in earlier eras than they are today.
“Of course, these films aren’t real history,” he says. “They are extremely romanticized depictions of the past. But somehow over the years, we have gotten less and less interested in what happened in the bygone days and much more interested in the here and now and the future.”
People also read more in the heyday of the old action-adventure films. “They did fall in love with these kind of novels -- the ones by Sir Walter Scott and Rafael Sabatini,” Jewell says. “They wanted to see those stories turned into movies, and Hollywood was happy to oblige because they knew there was an audience out there. Over time, the audience has kind of moved into science fiction and other areas that weren’t so prevalent back during this period. I think sadly, it kind of left these romantic adventure stories behind.”
So what about the phenomenal worldwide success of the lavish “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies?
“I think truthfully, people are more interested in Johnny Depp’s characterization and fantasy elements [than the adventure],” Jewell says. “When they did pirate movies back during this period, they were considerably more realistic than ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’ Even something like ‘Crimson Pirate,’ in which Burt Lancaster pushed things pretty far in terms of just the amazing level of acrobatic derring-do, they are still more grounded in reality.”
Because of the studio system, Hollywood knew how to churn out these lavish adventure tales. “You had thousands of employees under contract to each studio,” says Jewell. “You had people there who had done these kind of movies, and knew how to mount them. You had great directors, great writers and also you had all of the technical people from the prop guys through the costumers and the cinematographers.”
And the films they produced were a lot less costly to make than a “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
“That doesn’t mean these films weren’t expensive,” he says. “In studio-system terms, they were among the most expensive films that the studios made during this time period. But when you look at the cost of them now with all of our digital special effects, they were amazingly economical.”
Jewell believes the 1950s were the greatest decade for the genre. “By that time they were emphasizing color much more in films, he says. “Secondly, the wide screen comes in and of course, this is a genre that lends itself perfectly to the wide screen -- there’s so much more spectacle up on the screen.”
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‘The Spirit of Adventure’
Where: American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd.; Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica
When: Today through July 5 at the Egyptian; June 28 through July 1 at the Aero
Price: $7 to $10
Contact: (323) 466-FILM or go to www.americancinematheque.com
All show times are 7:30 p.m.
Egyptian
Today: “Moonfleet,” “King Solomon’s Mines”
June 15: “Kim,” “King of the Khyber Rifles”
June 16: “The Flame and the Arrow,” “The Crimson Pirate”
June 17: “Son of Fury,” “Suez”
June 20: “The Bullfighter and the Lady,” “Blowing Wild”
June 28: “The Great Escape”
June 29: “Rampage,” “Harry Black and the Tiger”
June 30: “The Train,” “13 Rue Madeleine”
July 1: “Only Angels Have Wings,” “The Big Sky”
July 5: “The Bridge on the River Kwai”
Aero
June 28: “Only Angels Have Wings,” “The Big Sky”
June 29: “The Bridge on the River Kwai”
June 30: “The Great Escape”
July 1: “The Man Who Would Be King,” “Damn the Defiant”
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