🎥🍿The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) Action, Adventure, Romance

Directors: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley IMDb RATING 7.9/10 55K

• During one fight sequence, Errol Flynn was jabbed by an actor who was using an unprotected sword--he asked him why he didn't have a guard on the point. The other player apologized and explained that director Michael Curtiz had instructed him to remove the safety feature in order to make the action "more exciting". Flynn reportedly climbed up a gantry where Curtiz was standing next to the camera, took him by the throat and asked him if he found that "exciting enough".
• The archery tournament was shot at the now gone Busch Gardens in Pasadena, CA, which was later used for the Wilkes plantation exteriors in Gone with the Wind (1939), among many other films.
• According to TCM host Robert Osborne, the film was so successful that a sequel was commissioned. However, the US government wanted to restrict the amount of money invested in filmmaking at that point in anticipation of joining World War II, so it was delayed. By 1945, when the war was over, the project was scrapped because Olivia de Havilland and Claude Rains were no longer employed at Warner Bros.
• Howard Hill, who is listed in the credits as "Captain of Archers", also played "Elwyn the Welshman" in the archery contest. Hill actually made the shot where we see one arrow split another and he did all the shots which required hitting human targets. He also worked closely with the sound department to produce the distinctive arrow sounds by using specially made arrows.
• Errol Flynn was not happy when Michael Curtiz was assigned to the film, as he didn't care for Curtiz's dictatorial methods and the two clashed often while filming The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), especially over what he--an avid horseman--saw as Curtiz's indifference to the injuries and deaths of many of the horses used in the film.
• Maid Marian is not from an original Robin Hood ballad but a French romantic ballad, "Jeau Robin et Marian" ("Play of Robin and Marian"). Robin was not a former nobleman but a shepherd, and Marian was a shepherdess whom he loved.
• The Sir Joseph Hooker Oak (called the Gallows Oak in the film) where Robin Hood forms his outlaw band was supposedly the largest living oak tree in the world at the time of filming in 1937. The rock that Errol Flynn stands on in front of the tree is a prop. The oak was felled by lightning in 1979, and only then was it discovered that it was actually two oak trees, estimated to be 125 years old, that had fused together over time.
• While filming Robin Hood's escape from the castle, Basil Rathbone was knocked down and trampled by extras, causing a spear wound in his right foot that required eight stitches to close.
• The stunt players wore heavy padding underneath a steel breastplate overlaid with some balsa wood to absorb the impact of arrows.