#100: THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938)

 

THRILL SCALE 1-10

6

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

No, first time watching it

BEST SEQUENCE

Robin’s escape from execution. About to be hanged, Robin's men rescue him, and there's a really cool part where Robin chops through a rope, dropping a heavy portcullis, and riding the rope to the top of the gate.

BEST LINE

“There’s a lusty infant!” - Robin Hood, the first time he sees Little John

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

100%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

“Errol Flynn thrills as the legendary title character, and the film embodies the type of imaginative family adventure tailor-made for the silver screen.”

IMDB SYNOPSIS

“When Prince John and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a rebel guerrilla army.”

THOUGHTS

• Errol Flynn certainly dashing as Robin Hood
• Claude Rains as Prince John is not intimidating in the least, just whiny and obnoxious. Sometimes that makes for a perfectly hateable villain, though, and that’s surely what they were going for
• Basil Rathbone as Guy of Gisbourne, on the other hand, is supposed to be the intimidating one, but he doesn’t leave much of an impression. His climactic sword fight with Robin is pretty exciting, however
• Olivia de Havilland is a lovely Maid Marian
• Impressive sets and beautiful scenery. And you have to love the costumes
• Some of the action scenes have a weird sped-up, cartoony quality. Just a filming technique from back then, I suppose
• In some scenes the good guys are killing dudes in cold blood by shooting them through the heart with arrows, and in other scenes they’re swinging around on vines and jumping out of trees like frigging Ewoks
• The archery is really quite effective, though, and the arrows thunk into the bad guys with an impact you can feel. At first I assumed it was just movie magic and they weren’t real arrows, but according to Wikipedia, “Stunt men and bit players, padded with balsa wood on protective metal plates, were paid $150 per arrow for being shot by professional archer Howard Hill.” Sure, I’ll take an arrow for $150, come at me
• Lots of talk about the Normans and the Saxons, and I have so little knowledge about English history that I have no idea what either means
• While I chose Robin’s “lusty infant” line as the best line of the movie, just because of how bizarre it sounded, there were actually quite a few great lines throughout the movie:

Maid Marian, to Robin: “Why, you speak treason!”
Robin: “Fluently”

Maid Marian, defending herself, after being caught helping Robin Hood: “I’d do it again if you killed me for it”

Prince John: “Prophetic speech, my lady. For that is exactly what is going to happen to you.”

• And lastly, perhaps my actual favourite line.

Will Scarlet enters and sees Friar Tuck (a portly fellow) for the first time.

Robin, to Will: “It’s all right, he’s one of us.”

Will: “One of us?! He looks like three of us!”

• I mean, come on...that’s just funny.

Up next: We supplement the AFI's 100 Thrills list for the first time by checking out a more modern Robin Hood story with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.