Eugene Pallette

Most of Eugene Pallette’s film career occurred before 1930, in the days of silent films. He was young, he was slim, he was silent. We probably wouldn’t recognize him, since he has become known to us as the boisterous, frog-voiced, and overweight family patriarch in such films as “The Lady Eve” (1941) and “My Man Godfrey” (1936).

In “The Lady Eve” he makes his memorable appearance striding down the enormous staircase of his mansion, laconically singing the bawdy tavern song:

Landlord, fill the flowing bowl
Until it doth run over.
For tonight, we’ll merry, merry be,
For tonight, we’ll merry, merry be,
For tonight, we’ll merry, merry be,
Tomorrow we’ll be sober.

It is a magnificent entrance for a man who used his physical attributes with a sense of dash and pride, and a sensible studio which let him act the lord of the manor with all the dignity he deserved. Though there is sometimes much comedy in dignity, and Pallette played many comic roles, there is also a fine line that creates poignancy and respect. Most overweight actors were displayed as buffoons, but Pallette was allowed to be intelligent and shrewd. Despite his occasional roles as millionaires, they tended to be self-made men. Horace Pike, the wealthy brewer whom he plays in “The Lady Eve” seems just as likely to lift one of his kegs of beer onto a delivery truck as to discuss commercial trends in the boardroom.

His Alexander Bullock, head of the whacky family which takes on William Powell as their butler in “My Man Godfrey” is the only one sane and sensible, and not to be taken in by sycophants and sharpsters.

His Friar Tuck in “Robin Hood” can fight just as well with a sword as the much more athletically-appearing Errol Flynn. Pallette uses his enormous girth, and his impossibly low voice (which I think is the reason why they invented tea with lemon), not as comic foils but as heaven-sent attributes. He displays them proudly, as well he should.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) looks as fun and lusty a good time as people could have overthrowing a corrupt government while wearing tights, swinging from trees, and eating chunks of meat with their hands. 

Famous for making Errol Flynn into a star, a man who truly looked the romantic hero and so natural in his 12th century costume and pageboy haircut, that he seems to look out of place in his modern-day films. Basil Rathbone is the brooding Sir Guy who wants Flynn dead and who just plain wants Olivia de Havilland, who plays Lady Marion. Claude Rains is the devious and deliciously effete Prince John, who has usurped his brother’s throne. 

The well-known legends of Robin Hood are given a light but jubilant telling in this early Technicolor film, and what really makes it are the reliable character actors of the day: Alan Hale, Sr. as Little John, Eugene Pallette (who looks good with a sword) as Friar Tuck, Una O’Connor as the easily flattered giddy servant to Lady Marion, and a collection of Warner Brothers stand-bys. Most of the film is shot outdoors and this gives it an authenticity that is sometimes lacking in studio sets when conjuring history. 

However, the castle set is particularly impressive, and the final great swordfight between Rathbone and Flynn all over the great hall, stairs, and pillars of this set is especially memorable. The shadow of them thrown on the stone wall from the firelight has become iconic. There is another scene of the duplicitous Abbot, Sir Guy, and Prince John plotting, with the roaring fire between them and the camera.

Technicolor must have been invented just for fire. From the moment we see Flynn enter the castle with a killed stag across his shoulders and he plunks it on the table in front of Claude Rains, we know this is going to be a hearty tale of knightly courtliness, but no table manners. Swordsmanship, but dirty tricks. Honor, but treachery. Stolen riches, and stolen kisses. It is a 12-year-old boy’s best scenario: lots of fighting and not too much mushy stuff. We are told in the prologue that King Richard is off in the Holy Land to drive off the infidels. Loaded words today, and the fight between the ruling Normans and suppressed Saxons is a very old story in the course of history. Only the names need be changed to see the same struggles happening over and over again, all over the world. It seems it is difficult to escape even in an escapist film. 

We are told by authors Christopher Finch and Linda Rosenkrantz in Gone Hollywood (Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979), that Howard Hill, who was the archery consultant on the film and taught the actors for the great archery contest, was actually the person who shot Robin’s arrows dead-center on the target. We may still be impressed, however, by Flynn’s sword fighting, as well as his and Hale’s masterful fight with quarterstaffs. 

It is difficult to watch this heroic battle without being reminded of Daffy Duck’s less heroic battle with his “buck and a quarter quarterstaff” with Porky Pig as the Friar in Robin Hood Daffy (1958), made, of course, by the same studio, Warner Brothers. Though Flynn was never heard to have uttered “Yoiks and away!” as Daffy does for his rallying cry, perhaps he should have. It is the only thing that the film is missing. It has just about everything else. Another cartoon tribute comes in Rabbit Hood (1949) when Bugs Bunny’s Sherwood Forrest adventure is capped by a visit from the man himself, as the live-action film clip from Robin Hood is tacked onto the end of the cartoon with Errol Flynn welcoming Bugs to Sherwood. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, clearly Flynn’s “Robin Hood” became a classic even in its own time.

Alan Hale, Sr.

Alan Hale, Sr. has been called one of the busiest character actors in Hollywood, with 235 films under his belt. He began in 1911 with “The Cowboy and the Lady” and though he appeared in many westerns, he also played in films adapted from classics by Dickens, Bronte, Twain, and Ibsen.

In 1934 he played in “Of Human Bondage,” “The Scarlet Letter,” and “Great Expectations” in just that year alone. He was the boorish Klaas Poole who mimicked Barbara Stanwyck’s appreciation of the sight of a field of cabbages in “So Big,” and played her bumbling, hapless best pal and unsuccessful suitor in “Stella Dallas.” Another featured role was in “Santa Fe Trail” with Errol Flynn, and he made 12 films with Flynn.

One film with Flynn which stands out is “Robin Hood” (1938), in which Hale plays Little John. Mr. Hale seemed to have owned the part of Little John, having played him in two other films as well: “Robin Hood” (1922) and “Rogues of Sherwood Forest” (1950), which was to be his last film before he died.

Part of Warner Brothers famous merry band of stock actors, Hale was big, barrel-chested and seized each small role with the gusto of a star.

Una O'Connor

Una O’Connor’s voice like a rusty hinge and her spot-on comedic timing made her one of the most reliably funny and endearing character actresses of her day. Two of her most well-known appearances are in “Robin Hood” (1938) and “Witness for the Prosecution” (1957), yet even in the smallest roles she undertook, Miss O’Connor is instantly recognizable.

We see her briefly in two scenes meant to be years apart in “Random Harvest” (1942) as an unnamed proprietress of a tobacconist’s shop. It is a brief role, probably not worth her bother, except one can see why the studio would want her rather than an unknown character player of lesser experience. She has the ability to convey types and bring out the complexities of the simplest characters. She could be poignant and funny at once. Her stalwart maid in “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” was both, and she provides the funnier moments in an otherwise heavy drama.

The full range of her scale is probably seen best in comparing her roles in two films she did some years apart. One is “Christmas in Connecticut” (1944) where she is hysterical as Nora the Irish maid scuttling from room to room with various mystery babies in her arms, battles S.Z. Sakall from turning her “good old Irish stew” into Hungarian goulash, and butchers his difficult to pronounce surname. When asked to flip flapjacks, her deadpan reply, “I don’t flip, I scoop” is one of the funniest lines in the film, only because of the way she says it.

Another film shows the opposite end of the spectrum, when in “The Informer” (1931) she plays a Madonna-like poverty-stricken Irish woman whose son has been informed on to the police by Victor McLagen. She forgives McLagen, not as would a saintly person above the cares of the world, but a woman who knows all too well the human frailty which leads men to sin and murder. She is worn down and beaten by life, but still has enough strength to forgive.

There a genuine quality to her screen appearances that made Una O’Connor believable in any range of circumstances. Whether it be in Sherwood Forest or a Connecticut farmhouse, she seemed to belong there.