The Adventures of Robin Hood (film)
_Film |
name =The Adventures of Robin Hood |
image =Robinhooddvd.jpg |
director =
Michael CurtizWilliam Keighley| producer =
Hal B. Wallis | writer =Norman Reilly Raine,
Seton I. Miller | starring =
Errol Flynn,
Olivia de Havilland,
Basil Rathbone,
Claude Rains,
Patric Knowles | original_music =
Erich Wolfgang Korngold| distributor =
Warner Bros. | released =
April 25,
1938 |
runtime =102 min |
language =English |
budget = |
awards = |
imdb_id =0029843 |}}
The Adventures of Robin Hood is a
1938 film based on the
Robin Hood legend. It stars
Errol Flynn as the title character,
Olivia de Havilland as
Maid Marian,
Basil Rathbone as Sir
Guy of Gisbourne and
Claude Rains as
Prince John. Many film critics and historians consider it the finest of Flynn's
swashbuckler movies, and one of the all-time great
adventure films.
The film was written by
Norman Reilly Raine and
Seton I. Miller, directed by
Michael Curtiz and
William Keighley, and scored by
Erich Wolfgang Korngold. It was filmed in multiple
California locations including
Chico.
The Adventures of Robin Hood was produced at a cost of over $2 million, and was one of the few major motion pictures of the
1930s filmed in color. It was an unusually extravagant production for the
Warner Bros. studio, which had made a name for itself in producing gritty, low-budget
gangster films, but their adventure movies starring Flynn had generated hefty revenue and
Robin Hood was created to capitalize on this.
James Cagney was originally cast as Robin Hood but walked out on his contract, paving the way for Flynn.
The film was well-reviewed and became the 6th highest-grossing film of the year, with just over $4 million in revenues at a time when the average ticket price was less than 25 cents. Warner Bros. was so pleased with the results that they cast Flynn in two more color epics before the decade was over:
Dodge City and
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex.
Due to the movie's popularity, Errol Flynn's name and image became inextricably linked with that of
Robin Hood in the public eye, even more so than
Douglas Fairbanks, who had played the role previously in
1922.
The movie was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Picture and has been selected for preservation in the United States
National Film Registry.
Scenes and costumes worn by the characters have been imitated and spoofed endlessly. For instance, in the
Bugs Bunny animated short film,
Rabbit Hood, Bugs finally meets Robin at the end of the film and is stunned to see find that it is Errol Flynn's character himself, in a spliced in clip from the feature film.
One unusual legacy of the film was launching the career of
Trigger, the horse ridden by Olivia de Havilland in the film.
Roy Rogers spotted the horse in the film and bought Trigger for his films. This film series made Trigger one of the most famous animals in show business.
In
MythBusters, the 'Splitting an Arrow' myth test was based on the scene where Robin Hood completely split an arrow in an archery tournament. The revisit of the myth revealed that the arrow being split in the movie was made of
bamboo.
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