In 1950, the Japanese Government began to designate certain individuals or groups who were "bearers of important intangible cultural assets" as “living national treasures”. I’d be quite happy to start beating the drum for NZ Film Festival Director Bill Gosden and the good folks at the Square Eyes New Zealand Children’s Film Foundation. Sorry, PJ, you’ll just have to wait.

My default position where children are concerned is that they should be seen and not heard — and even then, their hands should be in view at all times. So, the better half and I taking three boys — ages six to nine — to the movies on a wet, winter Auckland morning is a recipe for disaster. Right?

Once they got that they weren’t going to be loaded up with sugar at ten in the morning, not at all.

Not when you’re seeing The Adventures of Robin Hood, Michael Curtiz’s 1938 epic in the equally opulent surrounds of Auckland’s Civic Theatre. Erroll Flynn swashed his buckles in the fight against injustice, Basil Rathbone buckled his swashes as the dastardly Guy of Gisbourne. Claude Raines’ Prince John preened and purred like a cat locked in an aviary. Olivia De Haviland deployed her full arsenal of limpid glances, heaving bosoms and chilly glares as Lady Marion.

I loved every minute of it. The three wise kids came to the conclusion that the fight scenes were cool (and there’s a lot of them), the talky bits were kind of dull, and the kissy bits had their eyes firmly pointed to the Civic’s star-flecked ceiling.

But what I’d forgotten about this movie is how lightly it wears a very simple moral. Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood is jaunty, dashing, and fearless — as quick with the snappy retort as he is with bow and sword. But there’s also an absence of angst and cruelty about him. Curtiz has room for knockabout physical comedy; romance not a set up for a gratuitous sex scenes and tacky dick jokes — not only between Robin and Marian, but between Much and Bess who, being a little down the social scale, don’t waste time meeting cute. The cruelty of Prince John and his henchmen is left in no doubt — but we don’t get our noses rubbed in it with sadistic glee.

And it’s obvious that even though Curtiz was a notorious hard taskmaster, that everyone concerned was having a lot of fun and well as doing damn fine work.

It’s easy to look at films like Robin Hood and dismiss them with a smirk. But is it really so terrible that for a little over an hour and an half, we can live in a world where someone can say with a straight face “It’s injustice I hate, not the Normans”. Or to smuggle in the radical notion that injustice is not only to be resisted, but can be defeated without becoming hard and joyless in turn?

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind the real world being a little more like this. Even if I had to wear gaudy tights and a silly hat.

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Robin Hood will be screening at the Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin festivals over the next couple of weeks. Details can be found at the New Zealand Film Festivals website.

The Square Eyes New Zealand Children's Film Foundation also has a website, including details of the ‘Around The World’ programs running in Auckland and Wellington from next month.