The Adventures of Robin Hood

Richard, the Norman King of England, is taken captive in 1191 by Duke Leopold while returning from the Third Crusade. Richard's treacherous brother Prince John, aided by fellow Norman Sir Guy of Gisbourne, names himself regent of England, increasing the Saxons' taxes under the pretense of gathering a ransom for Richard. The Normans exploit and oppress the Saxons. Sir Robin of Locksley, a Saxon noble, opposes the brutality and rescues Much the Miller's Son from being executed for poaching, earning Gisbourne's ire. Robin later confronts Prince John at a Nottingham Castle banquet, telling the guests that he regards John declaring himself regent as treason. John orders Robin's execution, but Robin escapes and flees with Much and Will Scarlet into Sherwood Forest. John seizes Robin's lands and names him an outlaw. Much is sent to recruit men to join their band. Robin and Will encounter John the Little on a log bridge, and after a quarterstaff contest, welcome him into their ranks. Dozens more men join Robin's band, swearing an oath to despoil the rich while aiding the poor, to fight injustice, and to show courtesy to all oppressed. They start a war against John and Gisbourne, dispatching those who abuse their power. Robin's band encounters the rotund Friar Tuck, a renowned swordsman who joins the band and assists in capturing a company of Normans transporting a shipment of gathered taxes. In the company are Gisbourne, the cowardly Sheriff of Nottingham, and King Richard's ward Lady Marian. After their capture, the men are humiliated at a celebratory woodland banquet, with Marian given a seat of honor. Initially scornful, she comes to share Robin's views after he shows her examples of Norman brutality against the Saxons. Robin sends the convoy back to Nottingham Castle, telling them that they have Marian's presence to thank for their lives being spared. Having noted Robin's focus on Marian during the Sherwood banquet, the sheriff suggests hosting an archery tournament, with Marian presenting a golden arrow as the prize to entrap Robin. Robin enters the tournament, is recognized by his archery skill, and is captured and sentenced to be hanged. Marian aids Robin's Men in a scheme to save him. After his escape, he scales the palace walls to thank her, and the two pledge their love for one another. Marian declines Robin's marriage proposal, remaining in the castle as a spy. King Richard returns with several of his knights. The Bishop of the Black Canons sees through Richard's disguise and alerts John. John sends disgraced former knight Dickon Malbete to kill Richard, promising Dickon Robin's title and lands. Marian overhears and writes to Robin but is found out by Gisbourne and sentenced to death. Her nursemaid, Bess, tells Much everything. He intercepts Dickon and kills him after a fight. Richard and his men, disguised as Norman monks, travel through Sherwood and are stopped by Robin. Assuring Robin they are on the king's business, Richard accepts Robin's offer of hospitality and his condemnation of the Holy Crusade but does not reveal his identity. Much relays Bess' news. Robin orders his men to find and protect Richard; now certain of Robin's loyalty, Richard reveals himself. Robin coerces the Bishop of the Black Canons to allow them to join his monks in disguise so they can enter Nottingham Castle. Once inside, Richard announces his presence, and a melee erupts. Robin kills Gisbourne after a lengthy duel, frees Marian, and prompts John's men to surrender. Returned to his throne, Richard banishes John, the Sheriff, and the Bishop from England. He restores Robin's rank, raising him to Baron of Locksley and Earl of Sherwood and Nottingham. The king also pardons Robin's men and commands Robin to take the hand of the Lady Marian in marriage. ==Cast==

• Errol Flynn as Robin Hood • Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian • Basil Rathbone as Guy of Gisbourne • Claude Rains as Prince John • Patric Knowles as Will Scarlet • Eugene Pallette as Friar Tuck • Alan Hale, Sr. as Little John • Melville Cooper as the Sheriff of Nottingham • Ian Hunter as King Richard the Lion-Heart • Una O'Connor as Bess • Herbert Mundin as Much • Montagu Love as the Bishop of the Black Canons • Leonard Willey as Sir Essex • Robert Noble as Sir Ralf • Kenneth Hunter as Sir Mortimer • Robert Warwick as Sir Geoffrey • Colin Kenny as Sir Baldwin • Lester Matthews as Sir Ivor • Harry Cording as Dickon Malbete • Howard Hill as Captain of Archers (also Elwyn the Welshman [uncredited]) • Ivan F. Simpson as Proprietor of Kent Road Tavern Uncredited: • Lionel Belmore as Humility Prin (proprietor of Saracens Head Tavern) • Charles Bennett as Peddler at Tournament • Frank Hagney as Man-at-arms • Holmes Herbert as Archery Referee • Crauford Kent as Sir Norbett • Carole Landis as Guest at Banquet • Leonard Mudie as Town Crier • Val Stanton as Outlaw • Ernie Stanton as Outlaw • Reginald Sheffield as Herald at Archery Tournament • Trigger as Lady Marian's horse ==Production==

The Adventures of Robin Hood was produced at an estimated cost of $2 million, the most expensive film Warner Bros. Pictures had made up to that time. It was also the studio's third film made in the full three-strip Technicolor process, after ''God's Country and the Woman and Gold Is Where You Find It''. The film was, in fact, planned to be shot in black and white for most of its development; the switch to Technicolor happened just three months before production started. It was an unusually extravagant production for the Warner Bros. studio, which was known in the 1930s for socially conscious crime films. Filming started on September 26, 1937 and ended on January 14, 1938. Producer Hal B. Wallis is generally supposed to have been the film's creative helmsman. James Cagney was originally cast as Robin Hood but walked out on his Warner Bros. contract, paving the way for the role to go to Errol Flynn. Though Olivia de Havilland was an early frontrunner for the role of Maid Marian, for a time the studio vacillated between Anita Louise and her for the part. De Havilland was ultimately chosen because the success of Captain Blood established the pairing of Flynn and de Havilland as a safe bet to help ensure box-office success. although one major scene was filmed at the California locations "Lake Sherwood" and "Sherwood Forest", so named because they were the location sites for the Fairbanks production of Robin Hood. Several scenes were shot at the Warner Bros. Burbank Studios and the Warner Ranch in Calabasas. The archery tournament was filmed at the former Busch Gardens, now part of Lower Arroyo Park, in Pasadena. Scenes which were filmed but not included in the final cut include the disguised King Richard brawling with Friar Tuck, and Robin riding off with Maid Marian; the latter would have been the concluding scene of the film and appears in the theatrical trailer despite not appearing in the film itself. Music historian Laurence E. MacDonald notes that many factors made the film a success, including its cast, its Technicolor photography, and fast-paced direction by Michael Curtiz, but "most of all, there is Korngold's glorious music". Also, film historian Rudy Behlmer describes Korngold's contribution to this and his other films: In reply to Warner Bros.’ request, Korngold told studio head of production Hal B. Wallis that he was a composer of drama and the heart and felt little connection to what he perceived as "a 90% action picture." Korngold called his film scores "Opern ohne Singen", operas without singing, but otherwise approached their composition just as he would for the operatic stage. The Adventures of Robin Hood was therefore a large-scale symphonic work, and despite the studio music department's providing a team of orchestrators, including future Oscar-winner Hugo Friedhofer, to assist Korngold, the amount of work was immense, especially for the limited time he was given to compose. Erich described this dilemma to his father Julius Korngold, one of Vienna's foremost music critics, and the elder Korngold suggested that themes from his 1920 symphonic overture "Sursum Corda" ("Lift Up Your Hearts") would serve splendidly for much of the most demanding action-scene music, and Erich agreed. It also won for Korngold his second Academy Award for Best Original Score and established the symphonic style that was later used in action films during Hollywood's Golden Age. The love theme of Robin and Marian went on to become a celebrated concert piece. ==Reception==

Contemporary reviews were highly positive. "A richly produced, bravely bedecked, romantic and colorful show, it leaps boldly to the forefront of this year's best", wrote Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times. The movie premiered at the Radio City Music Hall. "It is cinematic pageantry at its best", raved Variety. "A highly imaginative retelling of folklore in all the hues of Technicolor, deserving handsome box office returns". Film Daily called it "high class entertainment" with "excellent direction" and an "ideal choice" in the casting of Flynn. "Excellent entertainment!" wrote ''Harrison's Reports. "Adventure, romance, comedy, and human appeal have been skilfully blended to give satisfaction on all counts ... The duel in the closing scenes between the hero and his arch enemy is the most exciting ever filmed". John Mosher of The New Yorker'' called it "a rich, showy, and, for all its tussles, somewhat stolid affair", praising Flynn's performance and the action sequences but finding the "excellent collection" of supporting actors to be "somewhat buried under the medieval panoply". Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 100% of critics gave the film a positive rating based on 51 reviews, with an average score of 9.00/10. The film is 13th on their list of the 100 best classic films. Rotten Tomatoes summarizes the critical consensus as, "Errol Flynn thrills as the legendary title character, and the film embodies the type of imaginative family adventure tailor-made for the silver screen". Box office The Adventures of Robin Hood became the sixth-highest-grossing film of the year, According to Warner Bros records, the film earned $1,928,000 domestically and $2,053,000 overseas. Warner Bros. was so pleased with the results that the studio cast Flynn in two more color epics before the end of the decade: Dodge City and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. A sequel, Sir Robin of Locksley, was announced, but never developed. Awards and nominations Other honors: • In 2001 the film came in at #84 on "The Best Films of All Time" as voted on Channel 4. • In 2001 the film appeared at #100 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills list. • In 2003 the main character, Robin Hood, appeared as the #18 Hero on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains list. • In 2005 the film appeared at #11 on AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores list. ==Legacy==

The film's popularity inextricably linked Errol Flynn's name and image with that of Robin Hood in the public eye, even more so than those of Douglas Fairbanks, who had played the role in 1922. The film became a benchmark for later movie adaptations of Robin Hood. This was the third film to pair Flynn and Olivia de Havilland (after Captain Blood and The Charge of the Light Brigade). They would ultimately star together in nine films, the aforementioned and ''Four's a Crowd (1938), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Dodge City (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), They Died with Their Boots On (1941) and Thank Your Lucky Stars'' (1943), although they shared no scenes in the last film. Scenes and costumes worn by the characters have been imitated and spoofed endlessly. For instance, in the 1949 Bugs Bunny animated short film, Rabbit Hood, Bugs is continually told by a dim-witted Little John, "Don't you worry, never fear; Robin Hood will soon be here." When Bugs finally meets Robin at the end of the film, he is stunned to find that it is Errol Flynn, in a spliced-in clip from this film (he subsequently shakes his head and declares, "It ''couldn't be him!"). Other parodies were Daffy Duck and Porky Pig in Robin Hood Daffy (1958) and Goofy and Black Pete in Goof Troop'' episode "Goofin' Hood & His Melancholy Men" (1992). The cat-and-mouse cartoon duo Tom and Jerry have twice taken on the Robin Hood legend, first in the 1958 short Robin Hoodwinked, which implies heavily that its events take place during the Flynn movie, and again in the 2012 animated feature Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse. The Court Jester, a musical comedy starring Danny Kaye, is in great measure a spoof of Robin Hood. Basil Rathbone even appears as the villain and has a climactic sword fight with Kaye. In 1982, comedian and impressionist Rich Little played all the major roles in the aptly-titled television special ''Rich Little's Robin Hood'', portraying Groucho Marx as Robin, Carol Channing as Marian, Humphrey Bogart as Prince John, John Wayne as Little John, and many others. Many features of the Flynn film were lampooned, including the stairway sword fight between Robin and Sir Guy (Little imitating Peter Sellers as Inspector Jacques Clouseau). When the pair execute a maneuver twice, Robin asks, "Didn't we do this just now?" to which Guy replies, "Yes, but we did not get it right!" The Zany Adventures of Robin Hood, a 1984 telefilm starring George Segal as the outlaw and Morgan Fairchild as Maid Marian, borrows heavily from the Flynn film and spoofs many sequences including the banquet which Robin Hood crashes... disguised as a woman. In one scene, a villager mistakes Robin for Ivanhoe. When Robin tells her, "I'm Robin Hood," one of the Sheriff's soldiers mutters to himself, "I thought Errol Flynn was Robin Hood." The looks of many of the characters closely match the originals, primarily the villainous triumvirate of Roddy McDowall as Prince John, Tom Baker as Sir Guy, and Neil Hallett as the Sheriff. Most of the 1993 Mel Brooks parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights relied on this film for its aesthetics, although the plot was almost completely a riff on Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, as well as referencing the 1973 Disney version. Mel Brooks also spoofed the Robin Hood legend in his 1975 television series When Things Were Rotten. Actor Matthew Poretta, who played Will Scarlet in Brooks's film, went on to play Robin himself in the first two seasons of the television series The New Adventures of Robin Hood, one episode of which featured Robin and his team visiting a Robin Hood festival. One of the contestants in a Robin Hood lookalike contest was dressed to look like Flynn, prompting Robin to wonder just who the contestant was supposed to be. A fragment of one of the film's sword fighting scenes was converted to sprites by Jordan Mechner and used for his 1989 platform game Prince of Persia. Errol Flynn's acrobatic swordplay became a crucial touchstone for the light-saber duels choreography in Star Wars movies. In Disney’s 2010 animated film Tangled, the appearance and personality of Flynn Rider are partly inspired by that of Errol Flynn, with his surname also being used in homage. In 2025, The Hollywood Reporter listed The Adventures of Robin Hood as having the best stunts of 1938. ==Comic and storybook adaptations==

Knockout Comic (weekly picture paper, Amalgamated Press, London) No 434, June 21, 1947 – No 447, September 20, 1947, 14 issues, 28pp in black-and-white and drawn by Michael Hubbard) Produced when the film was first revived after World War II, with several deviations made from the film's plot, the comic strip's storyline is generally faithful to the look and narrative of the Warner Bros.' film. However, the famous climactic duel between Robin and Sir Guy is reduced to a couple of strip panels, with Robin remaining dressed in his earlier monk's habit. The strip opens with a joust between Robin and Sir Guy, a scene which was in the original screenplay, but was never actually filmed. London's Ward, Lock & Co. published a thick children's book entitled The Adventures of Robin Hood to coincide with the film's opening. Although no year is given it must have appeared early in 1938 since Warner's publicity department used the hand-tinted pictures found in the book—whose costume colors are often different from those in the film—for Sunday supplements in newspapers. With very few differences, the storyline hews closely to that of the screenplay, even inserting the fight between Friar Tuck and the disguised King Richard deleted from the final print. 16 color plates and well over 100 black and white stills, all taken from the movie, are scattered throughout the text. Another, thinner but taller, hardbound edition came out without a date but in what must have been 1955. This is deduced from its dust-jacket, the rear fold-over of which contains an advertisement for Ward, Lock's storybook version of Rogues of Sherwood Forest, a film which appeared in 1955. In this volume only 8 color plates appeared but all the black and white photos are reprinted and the text is identical to the first version. Yet another edition,similar to the second was produced, again, without a year and also sans dust jacket, the picture from the dust-jacket being printed in color directly onto the book's hard cover. ==See also==