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."
