AWARDS & HONORS

The Adventures of Robin Hood won three Academy Awards: Best Art Direction (Carl Jules Weyl), Editing (Ralph Dawson) and Original Score (for the initially reluctant composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold). It was also nominated for Best Picture.

In 1995, The Adventures of Robin Hood was chosen to be preserved in the Library of Congress National Film Registry.

THE CRITICS CORNER

The Adventures of Robin Hood was previewed at three theaters and was an unqualified smash each time. Amazingly, no changes were ordered before putting it into general release. It premiered at New York's Radio City Music Hall.

"A richly produced, bravely bedecked, romantic and colorful show, it leaps boldly to the forefront of this year's best and can be calculated to rejoice the eights, rejuvenate the eighties and delight those in between." – Frank S. Nugent, New York Times, May 13, 1938.

"Film is done in the grand manner of silent day spectacles... Superlative on the production side. ... Film has size, an appeal for eye and ear, and a story familiar in every land. It should register substantially at theaters." – Variety, April 27, 1938.

"One of the most popular of all adventure films-stirring for children and intensely nostalgic for adults. ... The archetypal roles that the actors played here clung to their later performances. ... The story is clear, the color ravishing, the acting simple and crude." – Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies (Henry Holt and Company, 1984).

The Adventures of Robin Hood...has become something more than an accomplished film from the thirties. For many, the influence of this film is immense. There is, for example, a great deal of similarity between the action of Robin's men in the forest capturing a gold shipment and the attack of the Ewoks against the Stormtroopers in Return of the Jedi (1983). Not only does it remain one of the quintessential films of the swashbuckling genre but it is also the definitive Robin Hood legend for scores of film-goers and television viewers." - Ray Narducy, The International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers.

"A splendid adventure story, rousingly operatic in treatment, with dashing action highlights, fine comedy balance, and incisive acting all round. Historically notable for its use of early three-colour Technicolor; also for convincingly recreating Britain in California." - Halliwell's Film & Video Guide.

"That the movie stands up to such regular inspection is not just because of rippling action, the stained-glass Technicolor, or the fabulous Korngold score. It is because of Errol Flynn....Flynn does not deal in depth, but he has a freshness, a galvanizing energy, a cheerful gaiety (in the old sense) made to inspire boys." - David Thomson, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.

"Magnificent, unsurpassable....the film is lavish, brilliantly photographed, and has a great Korngold score." - NFT, 1974.

"Mostly the picture is full of movement, some of it dashing in fine romantic costume style, some of it just sprightly. The excitement comes from the action - galloping steeds, men swinging Tarzan-like from the trees, hurling tables and chairs, rapid running swordplay, the sudden whiz of Robin's arrows coming from nowhere to startle his enemies...Somehow the whole thing has the air of a costume party, a jolly and rather athletic one, with a lot of well-bred Englishmen playing at being in the greenwood." - James Shelley Hamilton, National Board of Review.

Compiled by Rob Nixon & Jeff Stafford