It stars Warner Baxter as real-life Mexican folk hero, Joaquin Murrieta, and Ann Loring as his love interest, with Bruce Cabot as Bill Warren and J. Carrol Naish as Murrietta's notorious partner, Three-Fingered Jack.

In 1848 in California, Mexican farmer Joaquin Murietta has become a criminal to avenge the rape and murder of his wife, Rosita, and lynching of his brother, Jose, at the hands of the Americans.

The screenplay was written by the actor Joseph Calleia, Melvin Levy and William A. Wellman, with assistance by Robert Carson.

The Robin Hood of El Dorado was based on the biography of Joaquin Murrieta by Walter Noble Burns and was MGM's attempt to follow Viva Villa!.

"[1] The Robin Hood of El Dorado also anticipates the revisionist westerns of the 1960s, especially The Wild Bunch (1969), directed by Sam Peckinpah.