The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) – Review

There are movies you respect, and then there are movies you quietly resent for making everything else look lazy. The Adventures of Robin Hood sits in that second category, prancing around in glorious Technicolor like it knows it set the template and nobody’s really topped it since. It’s annoyingly perfect, but at least it has the decency to be fun while showing everyone else up.

England, 1191. King Richard the Lionheart is off getting himself captured after the Crusades, leaving his slimy brother Prince John (Claude Rains) to run the country into the ground with all the subtlety of a tax audit conducted by a cartoon villain. With Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone) lurking nearby like a well-dressed snake, the Normans crank up taxes “for the king’s ransom,” which is historically questionable but morally consistent with being terrible.

“We’ll be fine, unless Errol Flynn shows up.”

Enter Robin of Locksley (Errol Flynn), a Saxon noble who apparently woke up and chose violence, but like, righteous violence. He rescues Much the Miller’s Son (Herbert Mundin) from execution, storms a banquet to call Prince John a traitor to his face, and then escapes certain death because the plot would be very short otherwise. With his lands seized and his name now officially “outlaw,” Robin heads into Sherwood Forest to start what is essentially medieval guerrilla theatre.

Guerrilla warfare of unbridled charisma. 

Sherwood fills up fast. Will Scarlet (Patric Knowles), Little John (Alan Hale), and eventually Friar Tuck (Eugene Pallette) join Robin’s merry little insurgency. They rob the rich, help the poor, and somehow maintain a strict code of courtesy while committing organized banditry. Along the way, Robin captures a Norman convoy that includes Lady Marian (Olivia de Havilland), who starts off unimpressed and ends up fully converted after witnessing Norman cruelty firsthand. Nothing like a forced woodland banquet to change your political alignment.

Will romance survive Robin’s dining etiquette?

Prince John, clearly tired of being embarrassed, cooks up an archery tournament to trap Robin, which works because Robin cannot resist showing off. He wins, gets arrested, and is promptly scheduled for execution because subtle traps are not this movie’s thing. Marian flips sides completely, helps orchestrate his escape, and then sticks around the castle as a spy, because falling in love apparently comes with a side of espionage.

These two had an undeniable screen chemistry.

Things escalate. King Richard (Ian Hunter) returns in disguise, and everyone spends a while not recognizing him because medieval facial recognition is weak, and Marian nearly gets executed for treason. Robin and his men infiltrate the castle dressed as monks, which works disturbingly well, leading to a massive swordfight where Robin finally takes down Gisbourne in a duel that basically defines cinematic swordplay. Richard reclaims the throne, John is exiled, and Robin gets his title, his girl, and the kind of happy ending that feels earned instead of stapled on.

A good knight was had by all.

Stray Observations:

• The second time Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone cross swords, literally, after Captain Blood, and somehow, it’s even better, which feels unfair to every other swordfight in cinema.
• The famous “splitting the arrow” trick gets immortalized here, despite the fact that in reality it would just result in a tie and a lot of confused judges.
• Stunt performers were paid per arrow hit, and we’re talking real arrows here, which sounds motivating until you realize each arrow was fired by a professional who absolutely did not miss.
• The guards at Nottingham Castle have the situational awareness of houseplants. Disguises work on them with alarming consistency.
• Marian switching allegiances after one well-catered forest picnic is narratively efficient, if not exactly gradual.
• Little John and Robin settling their first meeting with a stick fight on a log bridge is peak “men will do literally anything except communicate.”
• Alan Hale not only plays Little John here, but also played the same role in the silent Robin Hood with Douglas Fairbanks, making him the rare actor to get a sequel gig 16 years before sequels were even pretending to be a business model.

“You don’t look like Douglas Fairbanks.”

Director Michael Curtiz runs this like a man fully aware he’s building something that’ll outlive him. The pacing moves fast without feeling frantic, juggling action, romance, and intrigue without dropping any of them. His staging is clean and purposeful, so every swordfight and chase is easy to follow, not a blur of chaos. There’s a real sense of scale too, from crowded halls to open forest, and it never buckles under the weight. Most impressively, he balances adventure and humour without letting one sabotage the other, which is rarer than studios like to admit.

Even fat jokes land with aplomb. 

The Technicolor cinematography by Tony Gaudio, Sol Polito, and W. Howard Greene is pure flexing, but at least it’s justified. The colours are bold and deliberate, with Robin’s green popping against the lavish reds and golds of the Norman court. It’s not just decorative either; colour helps define class and mood without spelling it out. The lighting and compositions are sharp and intentional, giving every frame a sense of care that a lot of modern films somehow skip. It still looks better than plenty of big-budget movies that should know better by now.

An epic look for an epic tale.

As for the performances, Errol Flynn is Robin Hood in the same way gravity is a thing. You can argue alternatives, but you’re mostly wasting oxygen. He’s charming without being smug, heroic without being stiff, and has the kind of effortless screen presence that makes you forget acting is supposed to be hard. The fact that James Cagney was originally considered is fascinating, mostly because you can’t quite imagine that version without it turning into a very different, probably louder movie. Producer Hal B. Wallis taking the risk on Flynn was one of those rare studio decisions that didn’t age horribly.

There’s a reason he’s the definitive Robin Hood.

Reuniting Flynn with Olivia de Havilland gives the film its romantic backbone. Their chemistry is effortless, the kind that makes you believe they actually enjoy being around each other, which is not something every classic Hollywood pairing managed. De Havilland gives Marian enough intelligence and agency to keep her from being just another decorative love interest. And then there’s Basil Rathbone, who might as well have patented the concept of the elegant villain. His Sir Guy is cold, precise, and completely believable as someone who would absolutely stab you and then critique your posture. He was one of Hollywood’s best swordsmen, and it shows in every movement during that final duel.

This film really knew how to swashbuckle.

Before this, you had Douglas Fairbanks bounding around in the silent-era Robin Hood, which set the stage. But this film is the one that locked the image into the public imagination. The green outfit, the swashbuckling tone, the mix of humour and heroism. This is the Robin Hood people think of, even if they’ve never seen it. Every version since is either copying it, reacting to it, or pretending it doesn’t exist while quietly borrowing everything.

Everything else pales in comparison.

In conclusion, The Adventures of Robin Hood is one of those films that makes you a little annoyed at how right it gets everything. It’s exciting, funny, visually stunning, and anchored by performances that refuse to age. There are moments that are silly, conveniences that are obvious, and logic that occasionally takes a holiday, but none of it matters because the film knows exactly what it is and executes it with near-perfect confidence. It doesn’t just entertain, it defines what cinematic adventure should feel like, and then dares everything that follows to keep up.