History Film / TheAdventuresOfRobinHood

* ProductionPosse: As noted above, ''many'' cast and crew were ''CaptainBlood'' alumni.

** Most viewers likely applaud the film for the historical accuracy of Marian riding sidesaddle. In fact, the forward-facing sidesaddle wasn't invented until the 1700s, and it wasn't until a century later that the leaping horn was added, allowing women to control horses at a gallop -- until then, women who rode sidesaddle's horses were led by men, and women who rode independently rode astride (as Marion does in ''RobinOfSherwood''). This may have been artistic license for safety reasons -- an accurate period sidesaddle would have been an insurance nightmare -- or it may have been done to add to the period feel of the film.

* CompositeCharacter: As noted below, Will Scarlet was intended as a composite of the deceptively foppish Will Scarlet of the stories and of the minstrel Allan a Dal.

* BlueBlood: Marian, though Robin is clearly a yeoman.

ErichWolfgangKorngold was initially reluctant to be associated with the "90% action picture"; however, the Warners were insistent, offering extremely generous payment for his services, and he at last agreed, leaving his native Austria just in time to escape its annexation by ThoseWackyNazis in March 1938. The Jewish Korngold was later [[DeadpanSnarker accustomed to say]], "Robin Hood saved my life." It is said that Warners provided a [[ShownTheirWork voluminous report on 12th century music]] to the composer, which he promptly [[DidNotDoTheResearch dumped into the wastebasket]] (''but see'' RegionalRiff, ''below''); in the event, Korngold's lush Late Romantic score, characterized by [[Creator/RichardWagner Wagnerian]] themes and [[{{Leitmotif}} Leitmotiifs]], not only won the AcademyAward, but set a pattern for Film Music that has lasted down to the days of JohnWilliams and HansZimmer.

** Most viewers likely applaud the film for the historical accuracy of Marian riding sidesaddle. In fact, the forward-facing sidesaddle wasn't invented until the 1700s, and it wasn't until a century later that the leaping horn was added, allowing women to control horses at a gallop. This may have been artistic license for safety reasons -- an accurate period sidesaddle would have been an insurance nightmare -- or it may have been done to add to the period feel of the film.

* RealityIsUnrealistic: Many people have cited the shots of people being shot with arrows as looking unrealistic. In actuality, stuntmen were paid $150 an arrow to be legitimately shot while wearing protection.

The film was originally intended as a vehicle for [[WTHCastingAgency Jimmy Cagney]], who had gained critical approval for playing Bottom the Weaver in Warners' 1935 production of WilliamShakespeare's ''AMidsummerNightsDream'' -- but when Cagney walked out on his Warners' contract, the project was retooled to accommodate rising Warners' star ErrolFlynn, who had in that same year made a huge impression as the swashbuckling lead of the [[{{Pirates}} pirate]] romance, ''Film/CaptainBlood''. Olivia de Havilland, having appeared in both movies, was a natural for the part of Lady Marian. Korngold, too, had been associated with the same two films, as adaptor of FelixMendelssohn's theatrical music for ''[[AMidsummerNightsDream Dream]]'' and as composer of a (mostly) original score for ''Film/CaptainBlood''. Basil Rathbone, having displayed in ''Film/CaptainBlood'' as the evil pirate Levasseur a fine talent for fencing and sneering villainy, was tapped to play the part of Sir Guy of Gisbourne. When director William Keighley was determined by the Warner brothers to be too dilatory and measured in his approach to the film, he was replaced with yet another ''Film/CaptainBlood'' alumnus, hard-driving director Michael Curtiz.

Other notable talents engaged for the film included fencing master Fred Cavens (yet another veteran of ''Film/CaptainBlood''!) to [[{{Flynning}} choreograph]] the [[SwordFight duels]] and [[TheArcher champion archer]] Howard Hill to perform the film's archery (and to appear in the small part of the "Captain of Archers"). There is some debate as to whether Hill actually accomplished the famous shot with which Robin splits an arrow with another arrow (the {{Mythbusters}} actually tested this one out), but it seems most likely that some form of staging was used. Various stuntmen were paid an extra $150 to allow Hill to shoot them in their specially padded torsos.

The script, by Seton I. Miller and Norman Reilly Raine, was considerably more faithful to both the matter and the spirit of the original Robin Hood ballads than earlier dramatic versions. This was largely in reaction to the 1924 Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., version, which had focused on a KnightInShiningArmor version of Robin, with much screen time devoted to TheCrusades and tournaments and relatively little to the character's woodland outlawry. Early drafts of the script omitted Marian entirely, as Miller insisted that she was not part of the original mythos at all; fortunately, the RuleOfCool ([[LoveInterests romance division]]) and the chemistry between Flynn and de Havilland ensured her appearance in the final version. Miller did manage to include many elements of the ballads: the quarterstaff bout between Robin and Little John, Robin forcing Friar Tuck to carry him across the stream, even (delicately, for fear of the [[MoralGuardians Catholic Legion of Decency]]) Robin's antipathy to bishops, though a sequence showing an exchange of fisticuffs with the disguised King in Sherwood was cut in the final edit. On the other hand, many elements that came into the legend only later were also incorporated into this version, such as the identification of the King with [[RichardTheLionheart Richard I]] from the Tudor historian John Major; the treachery of Prince John, the identification of Maid Marian with the King's ward, Lady Fitzwater, Robin's elevation to the nobility, from Anthony Mundy's Elizabethan plays; and the struggle between Normans and Saxons from Sir Creator/WalterScott's ''{{Ivanhoe}}''.

* TheCameo: Howard Hill, the archer who fired all the arrows, plays the man in the archery contest who scores a bullseye only to have Robin split his arrow (of course, he really fired that shot too).

* TheEvilPrince: Again Prince John.

* NeverBareheaded: Marian has only ''one'' scene in which she's not wearing a headdress.

** In the LooneyTunes cartoon "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV6nDGmsJRc Rabbit Hood]]" (1949), when Characters/BugsBunny assaults Little John, who has been announcing Robin's arrival throughout the cartoon, with a vehement "Well, where is he?" his question is answered with an actual clip from ''The Adventures of Robin Hood'' (ErrolFlynn received a personal copy of this short as compensation for the use of his image).
** The LooneyTunes short "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0IXO2eBPas Robin Hood Daffy]]" (1958) mocks both Robin's swinging on a vine ("Yoicks, and away!") and his overly jolly laughter after being trounced and dunked by an opponent.

** The ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration episode'' "[=QPid=]" (1991) is pretty much a WholePlotReference, down to a fight between Robin/Picard and Guy of Gisborne on a staircase--which makes Vash's absolute refusal to play Marian a whole lot funnier. (Oddly, though, someone somewhere seems to have gotten Guy of Gisbourne and the Sheriff confused, because Q is clearly playing Basil-Rathbone-Guy but calls himself the Sheriff, and Guy more resembles the dim-witted, rotund Melville-Cooper-Sheriff .)

ErichWolfgangKorngold was initially reluctant to be associated with the "90% action picture"; however, the Warners were insistent, offering extremely generous payment for his services, and he at last agreed, leaving his native Austria just in time to escape its annexation by ThoseWackyNazis in March 1938. The Jewish Korngold was later [[DeadpanSnarker accustomed to say]], "Robin Hood saved my life." It is said that Warners provided a [[ShownTheirWork voluminous report on 12th century music]] to the composer, which he promptly [[DidNotDoTheResearch dumped into the wastebasket]] (''but see'' RegionalRiff, ''below''); in the event, Korngold's lush Late Romantic score, characterized by [[RichardWagner Wagnerian]] themes and [[{{Leitmotif}} Leitmotiifs]], not only won the AcademyAward, but set a pattern for Film Music that has lasted down to the days of JohnWilliams and HansZimmer.

The script, by Seton I. Miller and Norman Reilly Raine, was considerably more faithful to both the matter and the spirit of the original Robin Hood ballads than earlier dramatic versions. This was largely in reaction to the 1924 Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., version, which had focused on a KnightInShiningArmor version of Robin, with much screen time devoted to TheCrusades and tournaments and relatively little to the character's woodland outlawry. Early drafts of the script omitted Marian entirely, as Miller insisted that she was not part of the original mythos at all; fortunately, the RuleOfCool ([[LoveInterests romance division]]) and the chemistry between Flynn and de Havilland ensured her appearance in the final version. Miller did manage to include many elements of the ballads: the quarterstaff bout between Robin and Little John, Robin forcing Friar Tuck to carry him across the stream, even (delicately, for fear of the [[MoralGuardians Catholic Legion of Decency]]) Robin's antipathy to bishops, though a sequence showing an exchange of fisticuffs with the disguised King in Sherwood was cut in the final edit. On the other hand, many elements that came into the legend only later were also incorporated into this version, such as the identification of the King with [[RichardTheLionheart Richard I]] from the Tudor historian John Major; the treachery of Prince John, the identification of Maid Marian with the King's ward, Lady Fitzwater, Robin's elevation to the nobility, from Anthony Mundy's Elizabethan plays; and the struggle between Normans and Saxons from Sir WalterScott's ''{{Ivanhoe}}''.

* BetaCouple: Much and Bess.

* TheDragon: Guy of Gisborne.
* DramaticUnmask: Though rather more a dramatic ''unhooding'', this happens twice in the film, when Richard reveals that he is the King to Robin and his men in the forest, and when Richard reveals that he is the King and Robin and his men reveal that they are ... Robin and his men at the coronation.

* [[ImNotHungry I'm Not Hungry]]: As Marian tells Robin after she has been captured with the Norman treasure-caravan, "I'm afraid the company has spoiled my appetite." (She tries to sneak a bite while he's not looking, though...[[WhatAnIdiot unsuccessfully]].)

* ShoutOut: A number of subsequent (usually comic) versions of the Robin Hood story enjoy parodying specific moments or aspects of this film.

** In the ''[[Series/{{Alf}} ALFTales]]'' cartoon version of the RobinHood story (1988), the Merry Men spring off obvious trampolines during the attack on the treasure caravan (as they do in this film), and Gordon/Robin, painting a self-portrait, paints out what is obviously ErrolFlynn's face and substitutes his own.
** The ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration episode'' "[=QPid=]" (1991) is pretty much a WholePlotReference, down to a fight between Robin/Picard and Guy of Gisborne on a staircase--which makes Vash's absolute refusal to play Marian a whole lot funnier. (Oddly, though, someone somewhere seems to have gotten Guy of Gisbourne and the Sheriff confused, because Q is clearly playing Basil-Rathbone-Guy but calls himself the Sheriff, and Guy more resembles the dim-witted, rotund Melville-Cooper-Sheriff .)

* TakeOurWordForIt: We are told that Marian has devised a plan [[spoiler:to enable Robin to escape his from being hanged]], but we are never told exactly what it entailed. It does not seem [[spoiler: to include anything that Robin's men could not have figured out themselves]].

* WarWasBeginning: "In the year of Our Lord 1191, when Richard the Lion-Heart set forth to drive the infidels from the Holy Land..."

* {{Expy}}: In ''The Mark of Zorro'', made two years after this film, Eugene Pallette would play another [[ChurchMilitant militant churchman]], Fray Felipe, a character obviously based on Friar Tuck. Moreover, Marian's lady-in-waiting, Bess (Una O'Connor) who has "had the bans up five times," is clearly modeled on the Wife of Bath in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''[[TheCanterburyTales Canterbury Tales]]''.

** In the ''[[{{Alf}} ALFTales]]'' cartoon version of the RobinHood story (1988), the Merry Men spring off obvious trampolines during the attack on the treasure caravan (as they do in this film), and Gordon/Robin, painting a self-portrait, paints out what is obviously ErrolFlynn's face and substitutes his own.

* PlayingHamlet: The 48-year-old ClaudeRains is cast as Prince John -- who was actually 26 at the time of Richard's imprisonment. (By contrast, John's ''older'' brother [[RichardTheLionHeart Richard]], 37 at the time of his return from Germany, was played by 38-year-old Ian Hunter.)