Adventure film
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Adventure
Plot
Adventure was an appropriate title for a book by Jack London, and when his tale of the South Seas was made into a film, the virile Victor Fleming was the right man to direct it. David Shelton, a plantation owner (Tom Moore), is faced with ruin because some of his native workers are sick and the healthy ones are about to revolt. Morgan (Wallace Beery) and Baff (Raymond Hatton), a pair of crooked money lenders, are about to foreclose when Shelton falls ill with fever. Joan Lackland, a female soldier of fortune (Pauline Starke), shows up (with her Hawaiian bodyguards, no less) to save the day. She nurses him back to health while her bodyguards get the natives under control. Joan turns down Sheldon's offer of marriage, but she reconsiders when he rescues her from a trap that Morgan and Baff have set for her. Twenty years later, Fleming made another film by the same name starring Clark Gable. That picture, however, was not based on the Jack London book, but on The Anointed by Clyde Brion Davis. ~ Janiss Garza, RoviCast
- Tom Moore - David Sheldon
- Pauline Starke - Joan Lackland
- Wallace Beery - Morgan
- Raymond Hatton - Raff
- Walter McGrail - Tudor
Credit
Victor Fleming - Director, Charles E. Schoenbaum - Cinematographer, Victor Fleming - Producer, A.P. Younger - Screenwriter, L.G. Rigby - Screenwriter, Jesse Lasky - Presented by, Adolph Zukor - Presented by, Jack London - Book Author| Advent Concert of Music by Bach (2000 Film), Advances in Cardiac Surgery (1998 Film) | |
| Adventure (1945 Film), Adventure 1: Trailers on Tape (1984 Film) |
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Adventure film
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007) |
Adventure films are a genre of film.[1] Unlike action films, they often use their action scenes preferably to display and explore exotic locations in an energetic way.[2]
The subgenres of adventure films include, swashbuckler film, disaster films, and historical dramas - which is similar to the epic film genre. Main plot elements include quests for expedition and lost continents, a jungle and/or desert settings, characters going on a treasure hunts and heroic journeys for the unknown. Adventure films are mostly set in a period background and may include adapted stories of historical or fictional adventure heroes within the historical context. Kings, battles, rebellion or piracy are commonly seen in adventure films.[3] Adventure films may also be combined with other movie genres such as, science fiction, fantasy and sometimes war films.
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History
The adventure film reached its peak of popularity in 1930s and 1940s Hollywood, when films such as Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Mark of Zorro were regularly made with major stars, notably Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power, who were closely associated with the genre. At the same time, Saturday morning serials were often using many of the same thematic elements as high-budget adventure films. In the early days of adventure films, the protagonists were mainly male. These heroes were courageous, often fighting suppression and facing tyrants. Recently these male heroic protagonists have occasionally been replaced by heroines, Lara Croft being an example.[4]
Popular concepts
- An outlaw fighting for justice or battling a tyrant (e.g., Robin Hood, Zorro or Star Wars)
- Suspense and dangerous situations the characters must escape from.
- Pirates (e.g., Captain Blood or Pirates of the Caribbean)
- A journey or quest of some kind, such as searching for a lost city or for hidden treasure (e.g., King Solomon's Mines or Indiana Jones)
- The Campbellian hero-myth cycle, coming of age, discovery of one's destiny (e.g., Star Wars, Dune, Lord of the Rings).
- Allegorical themes as social commentary (e.g., Planet of the Apes or Star Trek)
Adventure films can contain stock characters and stereotypes. In some cases this has been accused of going as far as implicit racism; claimed examples of this are Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, First Blood and James Bond "kicking third-world people around" in Dr. No.[5][6]
See also
References
- ^ "as a genre, the adventure film, also sometimes referred to as the "action-adventure" film, is one of the most uniformly popular and stable of categories". http://www.allmovie.com/essays/adventure-films-26. Retrieved 2011-04-13.
- ^ "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.". http://www.filmsite.org/adventurefilms.html. Retrieved 2011-04-13.
- ^ http://www.filmsite.org/adventurefilms.html
- ^ http://www.filmsite.org/adventurefilms.html
- ^ Ken Dancyger (2007) and Jeff Rush Alternative scriptwriting, Fourth edition. quote:
Stereotypes abound in the adventure genre. Examples range from the mad scientist in Dr. No to the mindless thugs in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The racism implicit in the latter film and films such as First Blood are by-products of the stereotyping rampant in the adventure genre
- ^ Thomas Pynchon (1997) Slow Learner. quote: "Modern readers will be, at least, put off by an unacceptable level of racist, sexist and proto-Fascist talk throughout this story [written in the 1950s]. I wish I could say that this is only Pig Bodine's voice, but, sad to say, it was also my own at the time. The best I can say for it now is that, for its time, it is probably authentic enough. John Kennedy's role model James Bond was about to make his name by kicking third-world people around, another extension of the boy's adventure tales a lot of us grew up reading. There had prevailed for a while a set of assumptions and distinctions, unvoiced and unquestioned, best captured years later in the '70's television character Archie Bunker."
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Mentioned in
The Hunch
(1967 Children's/Family Film)
The Hardheads
(1975 Comedy Film)
The Hero Prince
(1972 Adventure Film)
The Kings of France
(1971 Adventure Film)
Lady Whirlwind and the Rangers
(1974 Adventure Film)
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