6-Film Collection: Errol Flynn (1938-1948, Warner Archive Collection, 6 Blu-rays, 1 PG + 5 NR, 710 min.). This sets includes three swashbuckling adventures, “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” “The Sea Hawk” and “Adventures of Don Juan,” and three tales of action and war, “Sante Fe Trail,” “Edge of Darkness” and “Objective Burma!,” all starring Warner Bros. action hero Errol Flynn. In particular, “The Adventures of Robin Hood” is loaded with extras. The films are reviewed separately below.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, PG, 101 min.). The film, directed by Michael Curtiz (“Casablanca,” “Mildred Pierce,” “Captain Blood”) and William Keighley (“The Street with No Name,” “Torrid Zone”), sticks closely to the traditional tales of Robin Hood, including his first meeting Little John by quarterstaff battle on a wooden log bridge in this fun and action-packed tale. The film also features several scenes with large crowds of extras.

Robin Hood, aka Robin of Locksley, is played by Flynn. Robin Hood is a Saxon noble, a skilled archer and swordsman in a time of the Normans supporting Prince John (Claude Rains of “Casablanca,” “Notorious,” this set’s “The Sea Hawk”), while King Richard is off fighting in the Crusades. Prince John and the Normans have been brutalizing and over-taxing the Saxons, forcing Robin Hood and his bandit band of Sherwood Forest to rob the rich to feed the poor.

When Prince John learns King Richard has been taken prisoner by Leopold of Austria, he steps up his plans to replace the king, aided by Sir Guy of Gisborne (Basil Rathbone of “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” “Captain Blood”), who becomes Robin Hood’s main foe in the film. The more traditional enemy, the High Sheriff of Nottingham (Melville Cooper of “Rebecca”), is reduced to a very minor role here.

Prince John also has eyes on King Richard’s ward Marian (Olivia de Havilland of “Gone with the Wind,” “The Heiress”), who is anti-Robin Hood on their first meeting, but soon falls for the rebel outlaw.

Early in the film, Robin Hood saves Much (Herbert Mundin of “Mutiny on the Bounty,” “David Copperfield”), after Sir Guy and the High Sheriff try to arrest him for killing one of the king’s deer, an act that comes with a death sentence. An early highlight comes when Robin Hood barges into a feast for Sir Guy with the deer across his shoulders. It is the his meeting with Marian too.

When Prince John tells Robin Hood that he has seized the regency, Robin Hood replies that he will form a rebellion. He then has to fight his way out of the castle with his sword. That action leads to a horse chase.

Later, an archery tournament is held, but it is a trap for Robin Hood.

The excellent film comes with audio commentary by Rudy Behlmer, who also hosts several of the extras, including a solid making-of feature (55:44; Warner Bros. was looking to change its image as a gangster-making studio), a look at Robin Hood through the ages (6:50) and a selection of home movies shot on location and in the studio during filming (13:16). There also are some silent outtakes (8:24); 12 Flynn movie trailers; a music only track, featuring Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s score; a May 11. 1038 hour-long radio broadcast; five photo galleries; and 12 Korngold piano sessions, featuring music from nine films. A “Warner Night at the Movies” package for 1938 includes the cartoons “Robin Hood Daffy” (6:50) and “Rabbit Hood” (7:55), as well as a film on Freddie Rich and His Orchestra (11:05). Grade: film 4.5 stars; extras 4 stars

Rating guide: 5 stars = classic; 4 stars = excellent; 3 stars = good; 2 stars = fair; dog = skip it

The Sea Hawk (1940, NR, 127 min.). This adventurous tale begins in 1585, with Spain’s King Phillip II (Montagu Love of “Gunga Din,” “The Mark of Zorro”) telling his advisors he wants to take over the whole world, but that England stands in his way. Phillip is building an armada of ships to lead the conquest of England, which is ruled by Queen Elizabeth (Flora Robson of “Clash of the Titans,” “Black Narcissus,” “7 Women”). Queen Elizabeth is hesitant to commit funds to building up England’s fleet.

One who urges her to do so is pirate Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn), who captains the Sea Hawk. Once again directed by Michael Curtiz and featuring a rousing Erich Wolfgang Korngold score, there is an excellent early sea battle between the Sea Hawk and the Albatross, a Spanish ship transporting Don Jose Alvarez de Cordoba (Claude Rains), the new ambassador to England, and his niece Dona Maria (Brenda Marshall of “Strange Impersonation,” “Espionage Agent”).

Once again, the woman, Dona Maria, dislikes Flynn’s character when he seizes and sinks the ship she is on, but falls for him through his kindness in a rose garden meeting later. Thorpe, however, is gone a long time with a plan to steal the gold that Spain has seized from natives of the Americas through an unexpected raid in Panama, instead of attacking ships.

The plan is leaked through a map charting the waters near Panama and Thorpe and his surviving men are taken prisoner by the Spanish and turned into ship galley slaves. By the way, the black-and-white film turns brown-and-white during the Panama sequence.

What is left is for Thorpe and his men to escape their chains, seize control of the ship and warn Queen Elizabeth about the Spanish armada.

The extras include a “Warner Night at the Movies” package for 1940, including the shorts “Alice in Movieland” (22 min.) and “Porky’s Poor Fish” (7 min.); and a making-of the film feature (17:34; including Warner Bros. new studio that could be flooded). Grade: film 3.75 stars; extras 2 stars

Sante Fe Trail (1940, NR, 109 min.). In this pre-Civil War film, Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan play West Point graduates Jeb Stuart and Geroge Custer. After a fight with fellow student Rader (Van Heflin of “Shane,” “Stagecoach,” “Patterns”), an abolitionist, Rader is thrown out of school and the other two are assigned to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, then still a territory because it could not be decided whether it would enter the Union as a free or slave state. Once again, the film is directed by Michael Curtiz, but the music is by Max Steiner.

Mostly the film is about the U.S. Army trying to stop uprisings and violence by abolitionist leader John Brown (Raymond Massey of “Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” “East of Eden,” TV’s “Dr. Kildare”) and his sons. While Jason Brown was his youngest at 15 and most innocent son, he is killed when the Army discovers Brown has been illegally shipping rifles in boxes marked as Bibles. Jason Brown was played by Gene Reynolds, who went on to be a TV producer for the series “M*A*S*H,” “Lou Grant” and “Room 222.”

After battles with Brown in Kansas, but no capture, Brown moves East and leads an attack on Harpers Ferry, VA, which effectively starts the Civil War.

Olivia de Havilland plays “Kit Carson” Holliday, the daughter of a railroad builder that both Stuart and Custer fall for. Grade: film 3 stars

Edge of Darkness (1943, NR, 119 min.). This film, directed by Lewis Milestone (“All Quiet on the Western Front,” “Mutiny on the Bounty”) and with Franz Waxman music, is a tale from a lesser-known part of World War II, that being the Nazis’ occupation of Norway.

The film opens in October 1942 with a Nazi scout plane flying over the occupied coastal town of Trollness and not finding any sign of life, even after landing, except for one crazed man. Bodies of townspeople and German soldiers lie everywhere. When the plane’s soldiers reach Hauptmann Koenig’s (Helmut Dantine) office at the local inn, the lengthy flashback that makes up nearly all of the film begins.

The Germans already had occupied the two for two years. There were 150 Nazi soldiers stationed in the town of slightly less than 800 people. Among the residents is fisherman Gunnar Brogge (Errol Flynn, who really does not have much to do this time), whom the townspeople look up to as their resistance leader. Brogge is dating Karen Stensgard (Ann Sheridan of “Kings Row,” “I Was a Male War Bride”), the daughter of Dr. Martin Stensgard (Walter Huston of “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”).

Karen’s turncoat brother Johann (John Beal of “Double Wedding,” “The Firm”) shows up, causing some strife. The doctor’s wife is played by a familiar face, Ruth Gordon of “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Harold and Maude” and “Every Which Way But Loose.”

Some British guns arrive by sea 53 minutes in, setting up the gallant, but very costly final uprising by the townspeople. Apparently, a few dozen survived and took their rebellion into the woods. The fighting sequences are very well done.

Extras include the short “Gun to Gun” (17:37) and the cartoon “To Duck or Not to Duck” (6:40). Grade: film 3.25 stars; extras 1.5 stars

Objective Burma! (1945, NR, 141 min.). This film also is about World War II, but it is the Pacific theater, with Capt. Chuck Nelson (Errol Flynn) leading a team of U.S. Army parachuters into Japanese-occupied Burma to destroy a radar installation so that planes and troops can move into Burma and liberate the country. The film, which contains long stretches of avoiding patrols and dealing with the elements between action sequences, is directed by Raoul Walsh (“White Heat,” “The Thief of Bagdad”), with music by Franz Waxman.

The radar station is destroyed just before the halfway point. Things get more difficult when bullets destroy the soldiers’ radio, cutting off communication with their supply planes, as the men have to walk for days after the only possible plane landing field was found to be being watched by the Japanese.

One familiar face back at the Army camp is Hugh Beaumont (“The Mole People,” TV’s “Leave It to Beaver”) as Capt. Hennessey.

The extras are two shorts, “The Tanks Are Coming” (20:05) and “The Rear Guard” (20:29). Grade: film 3.25 stars; extras 1.5 stars

Adventures of Don Juan (1948, NR, 110 min.). Errol Flynn plays the swashbuckling Spanish lothario of the title with more than a little bit of humor in the film directed by Vincent Sherman (who here provides audio commentary alongside historian Rudy Behlmer). The film won an Oscar for Best Costume Design and was nominated for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration.

Twice in the film, Don Juan gets in trouble by fooling around with a deceitful woman who is about to be married to solidify a Spanish alliance. Sent back to Spain from England, he eventually has to save Count de Polan (Robert Warwick) and Queen Margaret (Viveca Lindfors of “Stargate”) from evil Duke de Lorca (Robert Douglas), who is trying to steer King Phillip (Romney Brent) into war.

Look for Raymond Burr (TV’s “Perry Mason”) is his third year of acting in films as dungeon guard Capt. Alvarez. Alan Hale plays Don Juan’s companion Leporello. Extras include Warner Night at the Movies short subjects. Grade: film 3.5 stars; extras 2.75 stars

7 Women (1985, Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray, NR, 87 min.). For much of his career, director John Ford made Westerns, often classics, with male heroes. For this, his final film, the protagonists are women at an isolated American mission in 1935 China, near the border with Mongolia. The area was filled with feudal warlords and marauding bandit armies, including one led by Tunga Khan (Mike Mazurki of “Some Like It Hot,” “Donovan’s Reef”) that eventually invades the mission compound.

Prior to the invasion, a newcomer to the mission was upsetting things with her non-religious attitude. That was Dr. D.R. Cartwright (Anne Bancroft of “The Graduate,” “The Miracle Worker,” “Great Expectations”). The mission is run by Agatha Andrews (Margaret Leighton of “The Loved One,” “The Go-Between”), who is especially kind toward the much younger Emma Clark (Sue Lyon of “The Night of the Iguana,” “Lolita”). The only male on the staff is Charles Pether (Eddie Albert of TV’s “Green Acres”), whose wife Florrie (Betty Field of “Of Mice and Men,” “Coogan’s Bluff”) is pregnant, despite her advanced age.

When Khan starts attacking the area, carts of refugees from a British mission arrive, led by Miss Binns (Flora Robson of “The Sea Hawk”). Eventually, to save the baby and then the rest of the female missionaries, Cartwright agrees to have sex with Khan, making Andrews become even more nasty towards her.

The music is by Elmer Bernstein. Extras look at the MGM movie stage created for the film (4:10) and the Chuck Jones cartoon “The Dot and the Line” (10:07). Grade: film 3 stars; extras 1.5 stars

Consumed (2024, Brainstorm Media, DVD, NR, 89 min.). A married couple, Jay (Mark Famiglietta of TV’s “Aquarius”) and Beth (Courtney Halverson of TV’s “True Detective”), are taking a celebratory camping trip a year after Beth's cancer remission, but they find themselves trapped between a wild madman (Devon Sawa of “Final Destination,” TV’s “Chucky” as Quinn) and a skin-stealing monster that supposed once was Quinn’s daughter Addison but now is a Wendigo. Not well-defined here, but dictionaries list a wendigo as a mythological creature or evil spirit originating from Algonquian folklore. Mostly it looks like a fast-moving black cloud that reminded me of the creature/thing in TV’s “Lost.”

In addition to not really clarifying the threat, the film simply is too dark at important times. Also, Beth has a couple of icky cancer breast surgery dreams, and there is a disturbing hanging sequence.

The film was directed by Michael Altieri (“La Madre”) and written by David Calbert (“Cold Comfort,” “The Wolves”). Grade: film 2 stars

Cosmic Dawn (Giant, Blu-ray, NR, 96 min.). The documentary, directed by James Tralie, tells the story of the 25-plus-year creation of the James Webb Space Telescope, which was finally launched on Christmas Day 2021 from French Guiana. It shows the immense challenges, groundbreaking innovations (10 inventions were needed) and extraordinary human efforts behind humanity's most powerful eye on the universe, a project of 14 countries and 29 U.S. states.

Webb was the second NASA administrator, the one responsible for the Apollo program.

The telescope is as tall as a 3-story building and as long as a tennis court. It is so big that it had to fold origami-style to fit inside the launching rocket. In space, it unfolded, sunshield first. The telescope’s greatly improved infrared resolution and sensitivity allow it to view objects too old, distant or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope.

I wished the documentary has more images that the Webb had taken, even a gallery as an extra on the Blu-ray, but there are no extras. Grade: film 3.25 stars

The Huckleberry Hound Show: The Complete Series (1958-1962, Warner Archive Collection, 11 Blu-rays, NR, 2,175 min.). Following the success of their first animated series for television, "The Ruff & Reddy Show," producers William Hanna and Joseph Barbera had another hit with this, their next endeavor. "The Huckleberry Hound Show" introduced the world to the affable, blue-skinned canine with a Southern drawl, who calmly conquered obstacles standing in the way of the many occupations he held, including a cowboy, chef, lion tamer, police officer, farmer and "stuff like that there."

Despite the popularity of the title character, the show's supporting segments helped launch an even bigger cartoon icon: the smarter-than-average Yogi Bear. His other friends include Pixie and Dixie, two charming Southern mice.

Each of the 68 episodes has three segments: one featuring the title character, another with mice Pixie and Dixie who find a new way to outwit the cat Mr. Jinks in each episode, and the third which stars Yogi Bear and his friend Boo-Boo Bear. Mr. Jinks “hated meeses to pieces.”

The set covers all four seasons of the show, restored from 4K scans of the original 35mm negatives. Included are vintage commercials that use characters from the series. Extras include Huckleberry quotes in a remix music video; a linguistics professor interpreting Huckleberry’s houndspeak; and an affectionate remembrance of voice artist Daws Butler, who gave speech to Huck and Yogi. Grade: series 3.25 stars; extras 2.5 stars