The Adventures of Robin Hood

No, that's not another fantasy. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Saturday night, T and I joined some friends at the Artcraft Theatre to see the 1938 Errol Flynn movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood. The Artcraft is an old (1922) theatre near here. It closed down a few years back, but it was recently bought by a historical restoration society, who is currently trying to revive its Art Deco glory. Each week, businesses or individuals sponsor a different movie, usually something classic. The people who work there dress up in costume for the event. (Merry Men, Friars, Ladies, Villains)

Anyway, I'd seen this movie a quajillion times before. (You know, because I grew up in the sixties and seventies, so TV was my babysitter.) And it's fine, as far as that goes. First movie to use the multi-reel technicolor process, actually. But a big reason for going was to see the theatre itself and what the society had been able to do to it.

This is one of the theatres that T and I used to frequent when we were first dating. It was within walking distance of the college, and they had a "college night" every Wednesday, so we could see a movie for cheap. That was back when they were still showing first-run movies. I think we saw "Ghostbusters" there, among some others.

Anyway, so I'm kinda watching this movie, kinda watching the old ladies swoon over Errol Flynn
(I'm totally not kidding), kinda looking at the way they've repainted the textured walls to give it more of the Art Deco flavor (can't remember if they looked like that back when T and I used to go here)... and suddenly, onto the screen comes Ian Hunter, as King Richard the Lionhearted.



So I enthusiastically tug on T's arm and squeal into his ear, "That coif is knitted!"

Yes, I knew this. You see, I had recently been reading about how stage costumers often used painted knitted items for chain mail. Makes sense, I guess, since real chain mail would be extremely heavy. And, I would think, uncomfortable for cinematic or theatrical battles. (Honestly, no real crusader, dressed in a 60 pound mail shirt, is going to be swashing or buckling, am I right?) And also, I'd come across some patterns here for knitted chain mail thanks to my friends at Craftster.

And, since we will be attending GenCon again in August, I thought it would be cool to dress up for the costume contest. We've never dressed up before, in the twenty some odd years we've gone, but last year I made M a female Jack Sparrow-type pirate costume and she wore it and it was lots of fun. So this year, I'm thinking T and I should dress up.

So, I'd bought this pattern for T's costume:





and I had planned to knit a mail coif and shirt.

I was thinking my costume would look either Regal and Queenly... or Saucy and Wenchy.

OR
What do you think?

At any rate, I'd done all this research, you see. So I knew what I was talking about. So I'm grinning and pulling at T and telling him "That coif is knitted!" and what does he say to me?

"You're a sick, sick woman."