It was produced by Hal B. Wallis and Henry Blanke, directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, and written by Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller.
The cast also includes Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Patric Knowles, Eugene Pallette, and Alan Hale.
At the 11th Academy Awards, it received four nominations, winning three—Best Art Direction (Carl Jules Weyl), Best Film Editing (Ralph Dawson) and Best Original Score (Erich Wolfgang Korngold).
In 1995, The Adventures of Robin Hood was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation by the National Film Registry.
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.
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.
Returned to his throne, Richard banishes John and restores Robin's rank, raising him to Baron of Locksley and Earl of Sherwood and Nottingham.
Uncredited: The Adventures of Robin Hood was produced at an estimated cost of $2 million, the most expensive film Warner Bros. had made up to that time.
[5] The first draft of the script was written by Rowland Lee, but Wallis objected to its heavily archaic and fanciful dialogue (one line he cited was "Oh my lord, tarry not too long, for I fear that in her remorse she may fling herself from the window.
[6] During the brawl where Robin escapes from the banquet hall, Basil Rathbone was trampled by an extra whose spear cut his foot badly, requiring eight stitches to close the wound.
[8] 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.
[9] 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.
[6] In 1938, Erich Wolfgang Korngold was conducting opera in Austria when he was asked by Warner Bros. to return to Hollywood and compose a score for The Adventures of Robin Hood.
Korngold's original and distinctive style was influenced by the Wagnerian leitmotif, the orchestral virtuosity of Richard Strauss, the delicacy and broad melodic sweep of Puccini, and the long-line development of Gustav Mahler.
[15]: 38 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.
It also gave him 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.
"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.
[21] 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".
[23] 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".
[24] The Adventures of Robin Hood became the sixth-highest-grossing film of the year,[4] with just over $4 million in revenues[3] at a time when the average ticket price was less than 25 cents.
[26] 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.
[9] Other honors: 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.
[15] 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.
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.
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.