The Adventures of Robin Hood
(1938), 102 min. Technicolor

The legend of Robin Hood is brought to life in this, my all-time favorite movie, a truly perfect and satisfying film in many ways! Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn in the same film — who could ask for more? This film has everything: romance, action, suspense, humor, excellent music, and great acting, especially from Rathbone as Sir Guy of Gisbourne.

The script for The Adventures of Robin Hood was based on the traditional legends and ballads of Robin Hood and Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe.  It's not a remake of the 1922 Douglas Fairbanks movie Robin Hood, although there is an emphasis on stunts similar to ones in the 1922 movie (e.g. Robin's swinging ride up the cut rope to the top of the Nottingham gate).  The Adventures of Robin Hood is one of the best film versions of a folk legend ever made. Scenes such as Little John on the bridge, Friar Tuck and the river crossing, the archery tournament, the escape from the scaffold ... they're all in this film.

In the year 1190 in England, Prince John (Claude Rains) is ruling the county and oppressing the Saxon elements, while his brother Richard is away at the Crusades. Word comes that King Richard has been captured by the Austrians and is being held for an immense ransom. Prince John exacts heavier taxes and pockets the money for himself.

Sir Robin of Locksley (Errol Flynn) has become an outlaw and is known as Robin Hood. Robin Hood is a hero of Saxon resistance against the ruling Normans who misuse and abuse their power and who oppress the poor folk who farm the land. But Robin is steadfastly loyal to King Richard (the Lion-Hearted), who is a Norman ruler. Injustice is Robin's enemy, not the system of government. Armed with a mighty longbow and leading a band of merry men, Robin Hood robs the rich and bestows his takings upon the poor.

Oppression is personified by Sir Guy of Gisbourne, a Norman baron determined to make life miserable for the Saxon peasants in Nottinghamshire, and even more determined to capture and hang Robin Hood, the outlaw. Gisbourne oozes evil throughout the movie and is downright scary. We see Sir Guy in the second scene of the film, right after the announcement that Leopold of Austria is holding King Richard for ransom. Prince John and Sir Guy decide to raise the taxes, supposedly to ransom the king. But ambitious Prince John has no intention of paying the ransom.

In the next scene Gisbourne captures Much, the Miller's Son, who has just killed a deer in Sherwood Forest. Gisbourne informs Much that poaching a royal deer is an offense punishable by death. But Robin Hood appears and, aiming an arrow at Sir Guy, rescues Much. 

Later, in the memorable scene of the banquet in Nottingham Castle, Robin makes a grand entrance with the slain deer slung over his shoulders and presents the freshly killed deer to Prince John as a gift. It is here that Robin is introduced to Lady Marian, a ward of King Richard. It is also here that Robin announces his plans to oppose Prince John.

Robin: Now, with the help of a sweet band of cutthroats, you'll try to grind a ransom for [the King] out of every helpless Saxon, a ransom that will be used not to release Richard but to buy your way to the throne.
Sir Guy: Let me ram those words down his throat, your Highness!
Prince_John: Oh no. Later. Let him spout for a moment. (to Robin) And what do you propose to do?
Robin: I'll organize revolt. Exact a death for a death, and I'll never rest until every Saxon in this shire can stand up free men, and strike a blow for Richard and England.
Prince_John: Have you finished?
Robin: I'm only just beginning. From this night on, I'll use every means in my power to fight you!

At this point fighting breaks out and Robin narrowly makes his escape from the castle.

 

ROBIN HOOD

Leading the list of best entertainment for the whole family is the new version of Robin Hood, cast to perfection and filmed in blazing Technicolor.

Surely the best of all adventure stories is that of the gallant Robin who rebelled against the cruelties dealt, not to himself, but to the defenseless poor by wicked Prince John. Surely one of the most satisfactory of romances was the love of the Saxon outlaw for the noble Norman maiden, Marion. And surely beloved characters never have been brought to the screen with greater exactitude than in this production of the familiar tale.

Errol Flynn makes a dashing, rollicking Robin. Basil Rathbone could not be more suavely menacing as the ruthless Guy of Gisbourne. Ian Hunter is noble and upright as Richard the Lion Hearted. Alan Hale is just right for the belligerent, guffawing Little John. Patric Knowles as the fashion-plate of the outlaw band, Will Scarlet, is as gallantly picturesque as could be wished. Montague Love is menace personified as the venal Black Canon, in sharp contrast to the roistering Friar Tuck played by Eugene Pallette.

Claude Rains as the ambition-bitten usurper of the throne is elegantly venomous relentlessly evil. Una O'Connor and Hebert Mundin as Maid Marion's nurse and Much the Miller's son are engagingly comic. and last buy very far from least in appeal is Olivia De Havilland as the spirited Maid Marion who risks her life to warn of Robin's danger.

Don't miss your chance to renew acquaintance with Robin and his merry men. The story has endured for centuries, but it is just as good, just as timely today as when it first was told.

—Llewellyn Miller, Hollywood, July 1938

 

While Gisbourne's men continue to brutalize the peasants, Robin Hood adds Little John and Friar Tuck to his band of faithful followers, the "Merry Men of Sherwood." After Gisbourne's tax gatherers have wrested a large amount of gold and silver from the people, the Sheriff and Gisbourne must journey through Sherwood Forest with the treasure caravan to reach Nottingham Castle. Lady Marian, accompanies them on this journey. Robin and his men ambush the party and reclaim the treasure. The prisoners are invited to the banquet in Sherwood Forest, and Lady Marian begins to understand Robin and feel sympathy for his cause.


Gisbourne and Prince John discuss strategy

Gisbourne and the Sheriff captured by Robin Hood

Completely humiliated, Gisbourne and the Sheriff are sent back to Nottingham in rags. They agree to hold an archery tournament in order to trap Robin Hood. They are confident he won't be able to resist the challenge. (At the archery tournament Robin Hood splits his opponent's arrow. This feat was actually performed by archery expert Howard Hill.) The trap works; Robin is captured and sentenced to hang. To the frustration of Gisbourne, Robin's men help Robin Hood escape from the gallows.

Meanwhile, King Richard and a retinue of five men, all disguised, return to England. Learning of this, Prince John and Gisbourne plot to assassinate the king and crown Prince John the following day. Lady Marian overhears the plan and tries to warn Robin, but Gisbourne arrests her and  charges her with treason.

The coronation ceremony is the climax of the film, followed by the final duel between Flynn and Rathbone, which is masterful. Rathbone shows his skill at fencing and Flynn shows his charm, good looks and athletic ability. Robin and Sir Guy cross swords down a large winding staircase, and knock over tables and candelabra. At one point you see only their shadows on a pillar. Finally Robin kills Sir Guy, who tumbles over a wall and falls spectacularly to the stone floor below. After Gisbourne is killed, Marian is freed, Prince John is ousted, and Richard reigns again. The true king, Richard the Lion-Hearted, gives his blessing as jolly old Friar Tuck unites Robin Hood and Maid Marion in marriage.

 

ROBIN HOOD

Robin Hood and his Sherwood Forest gangsters who saved England from royal treachery during the absence of crusading Richard the Lion-Hearted live again in films. Warners revives the legend with Errol Flynn in the role in which Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. scored his first big success 17 years ago. It is cinematic pageantry at its best. A highly imaginative telling of folklore in all the hues of Technicolor, deserving handsome boxoffice returns.

Film is done in the grand manner of silent day spectacles with sweep and breadth of action, swordplay and hand-to-hand battles between Norman and Saxon barons. Superlative on the production side.

"The Adventures of Robin Hood" makes a strong bid for family trade and an appeal to a public which takes its historical bedtime stories seriously. Robin Hood, with its naive, romantic charm, has showmanship qualities in its tale of simple virtues, hard fighters for a righteous cause, and black villainy. Played with intensity by an excellent company of actors, an illusion of fairy story quality is retained throughout. Michael Curtis and William Keighley are credited as co-directors, the former having picked up the story soon after its filming started when Keighley was incapacitated by illness. There is skillful blending of their joint work from a screenscript written by Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller. Musical scoring is by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Outstanding is the rainbow camera work of W. Howard Greene, Tony Gaudio and Sol Polito, who have merged numerous compositions and effects with colorful exteriors.

Flynn makes the heroic Robin a somewhat less agile savior of the poor than Fairbanks portrayed him, but the Warner version emphasizes the romance. Teamed again with Olivia de Havilland as Marion, Flynn is an ardent suitor and a gallant courtier. There are some convincing histrionics by Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Patric Knowles, Eugene Pallette, Alan Hale and Melville Cooper. Lighter moments are furnished by Una O'Connor and Herbert Mundin. Montagu Love and Ian Hunter have less to do but do it with conviction. Some hundreds of extra players are engaged in several of the scenes, notably the archery tournament, the scaffolding sequence and the coronation passage.

Costuming and settings are unusually brilliant and Carl Jules Weyl's art direction is outstanding. Film has size, an appeal for eye and ear, and a story familiar in every land. It should register substantially at theatres.

Flin.

—Variety, April 27, 1938

 

An experienced fencer, Basil Rathbone did his own fencing in the film. Fencing instructor Fred Cavens said of Rathbone, "He has excellent form and is the most colorful of all the people I have taught. I doubt that he would do well in competition, but for picture purposes he is better than the best fencer in the world." (quoted in Rupert Alistair's Errol, Olivia & The Merry Men of Sherwood)

Cavens choreographed screen duels to look like sword fights rather than fencing competitions. The resulting duels are glorious to watch. Some of the fencing techniques seen in The Adventures of Robin Hood did not exist in the twelfth century, however; they were developed centuries later. But such historical inaccuracies don't bother us, do they?

Doubling for Rathbone in the fall from the castle staircase during Sir Guy's final duel with Robin, stuntman Fred Graham broke his ankle. Rathbone did his own falling backward over the parapet after Robin ran his sword through him, but he landed on a pile of mattresses. The film shows the stuntman landing with a thud on the hard stone floor, a That fall sent the stuntman to the hospital.


Sir Guy and the Sheriff wearing rags

They must admit their failure to Prince John

When Warner Bros. began working on the script for "The Adventures of Robin Hood in 1935, the studio announced that the film would star James Cagney as Robin Hood and Guy Kibbee as Friar Tuck. However, in a contractual dispute with Warner Bros, Cagney walked out. After Flynn's success with Captain Blood the studio announced that The Adventures of Robin Hood would star Errol Flynn.  

Olivia DeHavilland had acted with Errol Flynn in the 1935 film Captain Blood. Their chemistry was so genuine that Warner Bros paired them in multiple films, including The Adventures of Robin Hood. Rathbone had also acted with both Olivia and Errol in Captain Blood.

In his book about the making of The Adventures of Robin Hood (Errol, Olivia & The Merry Men of Sherwood), author Rupert Alistair wrote that when Claude Rains was cast as the scheming Prince John, he wasn't sure how to approach the part. "But when he learned that he would be wearing a rust-colored, heavily banged pageboy bob, he confided in his daughter that 'all the henna, ermine and brocade' inspired him to play the prince as 'tacitly homosexual.'"

Trivia:

  • When King Richard and his nobles open their cloaks to reveal themselves, we see that they are wearing costumes emblazoned with a large cross on the front—costumes that identify them as Knights of the Crusades. Although the reveal is very dramatic, the costume is historically inaccurate. Crusaders wore the cross on the front when leaving for the Holy Land. When returning home, they wore the cross on the back of the tunic.

  • Rathbone was earning $6000 per week as a freelance actor in 1938.

  • The horse that Maid Marion rode was named Golden Cloud. He later became famous as Roy Roger's horse Trigger.

  • Kenneth Hunter, who played Sir Mortimer, was the brother of Ian Hunter (King Richard).

  • Alan Hale, who played Little John, also played Little John in the 1922 Fairbanks film Robin Hood.

  • Owen the Welshman was played by world champion archer Howard Hill.

  • Most of the Sherwood Forest scenes were filmed in Bidwell Park, a 2400 acre natural park in Chico, California, about 350 miles north of Los Angeles. A few scenes were shot at a nearby forest named Sherwood Forest after being used for location shots in the Fairbanks film. The archery tournament was filmed at the old Busch Gardens in Pasadena.

 

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD

Superb spectacle, magnificent melodrama, rhapsodic romance—"Robin Hood" has everything you want in the way of screen entertainment. Handsomest all-color film so far, it has moments of amazing beauty, but never do they interfere with the action which is essential to the spectacle. Speed and spirit are not sacrificed for the sake of dragging in an extra boar's head; the film moves every minute, and while it makes the most of its extravagant settings it never neglects the human interest. Every character in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" is very much a real person, as modern as tomorrow; and therein lies the picture's chief appeal. Sir Robin of Locksley, as played by Errol Flynn, has 1938 ideas about helping the underprivileged; but the way he goes about it makes it all seem so much fun that I think we should all take up archery. Robin's romance with Maid Marian is as lyrical as you would wish, with Olivia de Havilland an exquisite heroine. The merry men are grand, with Alan Hale, Eugene Pallette, and Herbert Mundin just right. Of course Basil Rathbone is the perfect Guy of Gisborne, and his duel with Robin is really something to see. Here is one spectacular picture which will thrill and never bore.

—Screenland, July 1938

 

After two years of research and with a budget of $1,185,000, shooting began on September 26, 1937. The original director was William Keighley. Two months later, when the picture was behind schedule and over budget, the studio replaced Keighley with Michael Curtiz, who had directed Captain Blood and The Charge of the Light Brigade, among others.

Erich Korngold, a classical composer who felt inadequate to write the score for a 90% action film, was persuaded by Warner Bros to try it on a week-to-week basis, with the option to quit at any time. He stuck it out and ultimately won an Academy Award for his wonderful score.

Shooting ended January 14, 1938.  General release in the USA was originally planned for February; because of the delays, the film was not released until May 1938.

The film was shot in three-color Technicolor, a new procedure at that time, and only the third Technicolor feature made by Warners. The final cost of producing The Adventures of Robin Hood was about $2,000,000 — at that time the most expensive picture ever produced by Warner Bros. But the picture was a hit, grossing almost twice that amount in 1938.

Academy Awards, 1938
Erich Wolfgang Korngold — music
Ralph Dawson — editing
Carl Jules Weyl — art direction
The film was nominated for Best Picture, but did not win.


Sir Guy reacts to Robin's defiance

Robin Hood bows before Lady Marian

Visit the Turner Classic Movies website to see a few great video clips from the film, including the trailer:

TRAILER (reissue): https://www.tcm.com/video/15955/adventures-of-robin-hood-the-re-issue-trailer
Whether Serf or Noble: https://www.tcm.com/video/1102605/adventures-of-robin-hood-the-1938-movie-clip-whether-for-serf-or-noble
He Wouldn't Dare To Attack Us: https://www.tcm.com/video/1102614/adventures-of-robin-hood-the-1938-he-wouldnt-dare-to-attack-us
I want him taken and hanged! https://www.tcm.com/video/1102608/adventures-of-robin-hood-the-1938-i-want-him-taken-and-hanged

 

Watch the climactic final battle and duel between Robin Hood and Sir Guy (choreographed by Fred Cavens):

 

See Page Two for more reviews and photos from the film. See Page Three for pictures of posters, lobby cards and promo photos.

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Cast  
Errol Flynn ... Robin Hood
Olivia de Havilland ... Maid Marian
Basil Rathbone ... Sir Guy of Gisbourne
Claude Rains ... Prince John
Patric Knowles ... Will Scarlet
Eugene Pallette ... Friar Tuck
Alan Hale ... Little John
Melville Cooper ... Sheriff of Nottingham
Ian Hunter ... King Richard
Una O'Connor ... Bess
Herbert Mundin ... Much
Montagu Love ... Bishop of Black Canons
Leonard Willey ... Sir Essex
Robert Noble ... Sir Ralf
Kenneth Hunter ... Sir Mortimer
Robert Warwick ... Sir Geoffrey
Colin Kenny... Sir Baldwin
Lester Matthews ... Sir Ivor
Austin Fairman ... Sir Nigel
Crauford Kent ... Sir Norbett
Harry Cording ... Dickon Malbete
Ivan Simpson ... Proprietor of Kent Road Tavern
James Baker ... Captain Philip of Arras
Lionel Belmore ... Humility Prim
Ray Spiker ... Matt of Slefern
Howard Hill ... Elwyn the Welshman
Holmes Herbert ... Archery Referee
   
 
Credits  
Production Company ... Warner Bros.
Producer ... Hal Wallis
Assoc. Producer ... Henry Blanke
Directors ... Michael Curtiz, William Keighley
Screenplay ... Norman Reilly Raine, Seton Miller, and Rowland Leigh
Cinematography ... Sol Polito, Tony Gaudio
Technicolor photography ... W. Howard Greene
Film Editor ... Ralph Dawson
Art Director ... Carl Jules Weyl
Sound ... C. A. Riggs
Music Composer ... Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Music Director ... Leo F. Forbstein
Archery Instructor... Howard Hill
Fencing Instructor ... Fred Cavens
Props ... Pat Patterson
Costume Design ... Milo Anderson
Makeup Artists ... Perc Westmore, Ward Hamilton
Hair Stylist ... Irma Kusely
Script Supervisor ... Fred Applegate
Wardrobe Supervisors ... Elmer Ellsworth, Ida Greenfield, Rydo Loshak
Assistant Directors ... Lee Katz, Jack Sullivan
Second Unit Directors ... William Dieterle, B. Reeves Eason
Casting ... Rufus Le Maire
Production manager ... Tenney Wright
   

 

Images on this page and pages 2 and 3 are from "The Adventures of Robin Hood," copyright Warner Bros. Films.

 

The Adventures of Robin Hood is available on DVD and Blu-ray

 a 2-disc special edition region 1 DVD
Order from Amazon.com

 a 1-disc region A/1 Blu-ray
Order from Amazon.com

 

 

Sources:  
The Adventures of Robin Hood
, Rudy Behlmer, ed., Wisconsin/Warner Bros. Screenplay Series, copyright 1979, The University of Wisconsin Press.
Swordsmen of the Screen by Jeffrey Richards, copyright 1977, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

 

 

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All original content is copyright Marcia Jessen, 2024