ADVENTUREFILMS.doc

ADVENTURE FILMSAdventure Films are exciting stories, with new experiences or exotic locales. Adventure films are very similar to the action film genre, in that they are designed to provide an action-filled, energetic experience for the film viewer. Rather than the predominant emphasis on violence and fighting that is found in action films, however, the viewer of adventure films can live vicariously through the travels, conquests, explorations, creation of empires, struggles and situations that confront the main characters, actual historical figures or protagonists.Adventure films were intended to appeal mainly to men, creating major male heroic stars through the years. These courageous, patriotic, or altruistic heroes often fought for their beliefs, struggled for freedom, or overcame injustice. Modern adventure films, some of which have been successful blockbusters, have crossed over and added resourceful action heroes (and oftentimes heroines). Under the category of adventure films, we can include traditional swashbucklers, serialized films, and historical spectacles (similar to the epics film genre), searches or expeditions for lost continents, jungle and desert epics, treasure hunts and quests, disaster films, and heroic journeys or searches for the unknown. Adventure films are often set in an historical period, and may include adapted stories of historical or literary adventure heroes (Robin Hood, Tarzan, and Zorro for example), kings, battles, rebellion, or piracy. Adventure films share many elements with other genres - there are numerous examples of sci-fi, fantasy, and war films with characteristics of this genre. Adventure films, in a broader context, could include boxing movies, motor racing films, and films adapted from literary novels (i.e., King Solomons Mines (1937 and 1950), The Thief of Bagdad (1924 and 1940), The Three Musketeers (1916, 1921, 1933, 1935, 1948, 1973, and 1993), and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937, 1952). Directors and Stars of Classic Adventure Films: Individual directors often associated with adventure films include Cecil B. DeMille, Henry Hathaway, Michael Curtiz, Howard Hawks, John Huston, David Lean, Zoltan Korda, and Raoul Walsh. The major adventure film stars through the years have included Douglas Fairbanks Sr. (and Jr.), Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Johnny Weismuller, Tyrone Power, Gary Cooper, Stewart Granger, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Charlton Heston, Alan Ladd, Sabu, Cornel Wilde, Sean Connery, John Wayne, and Harrison Ford. The female stars in these movies often were secondary figures, or romantic interests for the male leads. Serials: The action/adventure film first became popular with weekly Saturday serials, running in installments that often had cliff-hanging endings to entice viewers to return for the next show. Heroine Pearl White in the 20-episode The Perils of Pauline (1914) was the first major super-star of the silent serials. Besides Pearl White, there were other queens of the sound serials, including Kay Aldridge (as jungle Queen Nyoka in Nyoka and the Tigermen (1942) and Linda Stirling (in the 12 part serial Zorros Black Whip (1944) and as the Tiger Woman in another 12-episode serial, Perils of the Darkest Jungle (1944). Other action-adventure heros of B-picture adventure films included Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers. Buster Crabbe was the most famous of all the serial action heroes in the 1930s and 1940s, starring as both Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. But there were others: Kane Richmond (as the Spy Smasher, The Shadow, and a star in the Cliffhanger Serials and the Rin-Tin-Tin adventure serial), Tom Tyler (as Captain Marvel with countless episodes, and The Phantom of the West), and Don Red Barry (as Red Ryder). See this sites writeup of superheroes in fantasy films. Modern-Day Homage to the Earliest Adventure Films: Steven Spielbergs Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) was an affectionate return and tribute to the early days of Saturday morning matinees and cinema, with comic-book archaeology hero Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) battling the Nazis while searching for the sacred Ark of the Covenant - the first in a very successful trilogy of films. So were the adventure-action-romance-comedies Romancing the Stone (1984) and its sequel The Jewel of the Nile (1985) starring Michael Douglas as the American soldier-of-fortune, and Kathleen Turner as a romance novelist. The Swashbuckler and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr: The first major form of adventure film was the swashbuckler with energetic Hollywood, beefcake action-heroes in historically atmospheric settings of the 18th or 19th centuries. Swashbucklers included lavish sets, costumes, and weapons of the past, and were often built upon action scenes of sea battles, castle duels, sword and cutlass fighting, etc., and the romancing of damsels in distress. The first successful swashbuckler star of the 1920s was the charming, exuberant, gracefully-athletic, gymnastic actor Douglas Fairbanks Sr., who performed most of his own stunts and daring swordplay in a wide range of costume adventures, starring as Zorro, Robin Hood (in the large-scale film version Robin Hood (1922), and the acrobatic DArtagnan (in the film adaptation of Dumas adventure classic The Three Musketeers (1921). Moving from comedy-adventures to derring-do costume adventures at the start of the decade, Fairbanks starred in director Fred Niblos silent The Mark of Zorro (1920), adapted from Johnson McCulleys novel The Curse of Capistrano. He starred in the dual role of Don Diego and the dashing young swordsman Zorro - the hero of the oppressed poor by tyrants ruling in California in the 1830s. This portrayal established Fairbanks as the predominant dueling swashbuckler in the silent era, in a duel against Noah Beery. Fairbanks reprised his legendary role as the son of the masked avenger in director Donald Crisps two-hour sequel Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925), while romancing and saving Mary Astor. One of the best silent swashbucklers was Robin Hood (1922) in which he starred as the famed adventurer in love with Maid Marian - he also wrote the films screenplay and financed the expensive film. Fairbanks also appeared in the title swashbuckling role as The Gaucho (1927) and danced a hot tango with co-star Lupe Velez. The Robin Hood story is one of the most-often filmed swashbucklers - also the animated Robin Hood (1973), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991),