The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Julie Gerding

For anyone who has read the classic Robin Hood stories or seen its film incarnations, Warner Brothers’ The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) is familiar turf. While King Richard is away from England, Prince John usurps his throne, his Normans persecuting the Saxons through taxation and torture. Robin Hood alone stands apart and forms his band of outlaws, residing in Sherwood Forest, to revolt against Prince John’s tyranny. Humorous antics ensue as he recruits members and they ultimately hijack a royal party. To draw out Robin Hood, Prince John stages an archery contest where Robin appears in disguise, faces capture, but escapes in yet another fight. The film concludes with Robin being caught and almost hung, only to be saved by his men and Maid Marian. Meanwhile, King Richard dodges his brother’s plot to kill him, returning to reclaim his throne and approve Marian and Robin’s marriage. As the DVD box notes, Robin Hood won three Oscars and was nominated for Best Picture in 1938. The film has lush period costumes, albeit a bit brightly colored, and impressive castle sets with numerous crowd-pleasing fights.

Robin Hood is a Warner Brothers picture, and in Warner Brothers fashion, it fulfills the company’s penchant for stories with a social message. While the “robbing the rich to feed the poor” point is central to the original legend, this picture emphasizes this moral repeatedly, which must have played well to an only newly post-Depression audience. Robin discusses the Saxons being “overtaxed” and “overworked” in the early part of the film. Later, to convince Marian of this dire societal problem, he reveals the poor in the forest, whose homes have been burned while they have been “beaten and starved.” In a final promotion of justice, Robin Hood sarcastically comments at his indictment that it appears a “crime” to “love one’s country, protect serfs from injustice, and love one’s king.”

Robin Hood also reflects the studio system of its day. Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland frequently appeared in pictures together for Warner Brothers, and Michael Curtiz was a Warner Brothers director for this film as well as Dodge City and The Sea Hawk. In comparison with Flynn’s other roles from films this week, his casting as Robin Hood is typical of his swashbuckling work. In Dodge City, he plays the cowboy-turned-sheriff who fist fights outlaws while his role in Robin Hood contains numerous fight scenes and shows of one-upmanship, most impressively his metaphoric throwing down the gauntlet as he delivers a deer carcass to Prince John’s dinner table. In The Sea Hawk, it is unsurprising that Flynn plays a pirate given his performance in these other two films.

Finally, Robin Hood exemplifies “classic Hollywood narration” in juxtaposing a personal conflict with a public one. In this case, Robin Hood must win the heart of Maid Marian, who shows him disdain at the start of the film. Through his heroics in aiding the poor (his public conflict), he wins Marian’s love—his “reward,” as he calls it.