Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

Though lacking the continuing cultural visibility of
Valentino as star, the ‘‘serial queen’’ has attracted critical
attention as an extremely popular site of action and
spectacle in the silent era. As Singer notes, serial star
Pearl White (1889–1938) was an extraordinarily popular
performer, with high-grossing serials such as The Perils of
Pauline (1914) demonstrating the association between
intrepid action heroines, modernity and early cinema
(Melodrama and Modernity, pp. 214–216). Jennifer
Bean explores such connections to the long-running serial
The Hazards of Helen (1914–1917). She foregrounds the
railroad and other forms of transportation as important
sources of cinematic thrills within these films and as a
marker of the perceived speed and unreliability of modern
life. The centrality of female performers to action and
adventure in the silent period, admittedly within the less
prestigious form of the serial, usefully frames the critical
interest in contemporary Hollywood action heroines
(Action and Adventure, pp. 21–23).
Finally, it should be noted that the silent cinema also
sees the formation of a tradition of adventure filmmaking
strongly associated with special effects. The fabulous sets
of the Fairbanks adventures represent one such source of
spectacle. Of equal significance is the appeal of landmark
films such as the adaptation of Jules Verne’s 20,000
Leagues Under the Sea (1916), complete with elaborate
underwater sequences, or the ground-breaking stopmotion
animation detailing dinosaurs in the lavish
1925 adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost
World. Such laboriously produced films exploiting a variety
of technical innovations indicate the early importance
of spectacular scenes as a defining feature of action and
adventure cinema.
CLASSICAL CINEMA: HISTORICAL ADVENTURE
Within the classical period of American cinema, a variety
of action and adventure types were produced, several
achieving distinct generic status (the western, gangster,
and war film pre-eminently). Setting aside for the
moment these familiar action genres, we might consider
the historical adventure film as the classical cinema’s
central manifestation of action and adventure. In his
comprehensive study of the genre, Brian Taves suggests
that historical adventure comprises five principal types
which relate to the setting or activity associated with the
major characters: swashbuckler, pirate, sea, empire, and
fortune hunter. Of these, the swashbuckler is the most
familiar, an adventure form associated with a hero who
battles against unjust authority, displaying martial skills
in extravagant scenes of swordplay, often combined with
verbal wit. Though by no means associated with one
studio alone, Warner Bros. notably generated a series of
successful historical adventures featuring Errol Flynn
Action and Adventure Films
(1909–1959), first as the eponymous hero in Captain
Blood and subsequently in such titles as The Charge of
the Light Brigade (1936) and The Adventures of Robin
Hood (1938). In the latter, both a commercial and critical
success, Flynn was paired once more with female lead
Olivia de Havilland (b. 1916). This Technicolor epic,
with its spectacular sets and scenes of combat, built on
Fairbanks’s successes of the silent period. Flynn’s Hood
quips as he scales walls and fights in trees, atop tables,
and on staircases, suggesting a hero equally at home in
natural and human-made environments. Robin’s good
looks, hearty good humor, and martial skills position
him as both one of the people and a leader of men, his
virtues contrasted to the idle indulgence of most of the
ruling class he opposes. Released on the eve of World
War II, the film offered as explicit a condemnation of
authoritarian regimes as was perhaps possible within the
restrictions of the day. In its alignment with the Saxons,
an oppressed group that has lost power (rather than never
having had it), against the Normans, The Adventures of
Robin Hood exploits the political impulses that Taves
sees as central to the historical adventure, without ever
needing to touch on the complexities of power and
oppression within the United States itself. The historical
adventure continued as a Hollywood staple through to
the mid-1950s, showcasing various athletic, pin-up male
stars, including Tyrone Power (1913–1958), Douglas
Fairbanks Jr. (1909–2000), Burt Lancaster (1913–
1994), and Stewart Granger (1913–1993). In turn, this
tradition was revived in the 1970s, with films such as the
American-British co-production of The Three Musketeers
(1973), and has remained evident in later successes, such
as Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
(2003), hybridized with horror elements.
Many adventure films depict their protagonists journeying
to or through a geographically and culturally
distant landscape. Whether explicitly figured as the space
of empire, or simply evoked as primitive, non-western
(‘‘other’’) worlds, adventure space typically exists to be
conquered or in some way mastered. Its inhabitants are
defined as inferior and/or threatening to the white/western
adventurers who enter these sites. The Lost World,
with its Amazon setting, can be framed in this way, as can
various H. Rider Haggard adaptations, such as She
(1935) and King Solomon’s Mines (both novels have been
filmed on numerous occasions, the latter again in 2004).
Perhaps the best-known character to function within this
type of adventure space is Tarzan, a character first filmed
in the silent period (Tarzan of the Apes, 1918) and forming
a cinematic staple of the adventure film for decades.
The former Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller (1904–
1984) portrayed Tarzan in a series of films, beginning
with Tarzan the Ape Man (1932); subsequently, a number
of other male stars and athletes portrayed the character
SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM 29