Welcome to Sherwood! The Story of 'The Adventures of Robin Hood'

The newly restored DVD of THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD contains this documentary giving the viewer a behind the scenes glimpse of what was going on in the Hollywood of 1938 as Warners prepared to make their most expensive film up until then.

Rudy Behlmer, Bob Thomas and Robert Osborne do a nice job of explaining the problems of script, casting, photography, change of directors, the previews and the enthusiastic way the film was greeted by critics and public. It was a resounding hit at the famous Radio City Music Hall in New York City when it opened in May of that year.

Also interesting are the comments by Hollywood Bowl conductor John Mauceri who tells how interesting it was that Warners had under their studio three of the most famous film composers of that era: Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner and Franz Waxman, all at the same time. He goes on to praise the score and explains how doing ROBIN HOOD became a lifesaver for Korngold and his family at a time when the Nazis were taking over his homeland of Austria. He even recites the story behind their escape on the last train leaving Germany before the invasion of Austria. (Sounds like an echo of The Sound of Music's storyline).

Fascinating, well researched, full of anecdotes that should fascinate any fan of this glorious film.

As for my title comment, "Painting the forest green," we discover that because the film began shooting in October of '37, much of the forest had begun shifting to autumn colors, requiring the studio to paint some of the shrubbery a shimmering green to give it a summery look. And it worked...but any astute observer of the film can notice that in certain scenes there are definite sprinklings of autumn colors among the leaves.

Interesting to note the fond friendship Basil Rathbone seemed to have for Olivia de Havilland in all of the candid shots.

This is the second-to-longest, feature-length documentary on the DVD of The Adventures of Robin Hood from 1938, and while it isn't possible to talk to most of the people who worked on it(...R.I.P., you bunch of talents... you won't be forgotten anytime soon), this is a rather good retroactive making-of on it. Consisting of clips from it and other movies, interviews with several film historians including Rudy Behlmer(who also provided the fact-heavy commentary track on the disc), Leonard Maltin and a literary person, this is interesting throughout the 55 minutes sans credits(one extra if you count them) running time. They go into the development of the project(Cagney was once slated to star!), the cast, the addition of Technicolor, the archery, budget, score and the director situation. We get a ton of information, and this keeps your attention nicely from start to finish. It's edited and researched well, and I didn't feel like anything had been omitted. Honestly, I had no questions left about the picture when this was over. I recommend this to anyone who likes the subject of this production. 7/10

A typically solid and thorough Turner Classic Movies documentary about the making of this classic film: running for some 56 minutes, it's highly informative - but, given the subject matter, it's also done in an entertaining way.

Of course, it deals with several behind-the-scenes anecdotes that I mentioned in my review of the film itself...but it's also easy to see how, 70 years on, all the participants are still in awe of the film's achievement: the wondrous use of color, the spectacle, the stuntwork involved in the action highlights - in essence, the sheer professionalism of Hollywood at its best.

The archival research in this documentary is terrific. They obviously went to great lengths to delve into the Warners archives. I wonder why more DVDs of old movies don't do this kind of work? There is certainly enough material.

This is a 'making of' featurette included with the DVD release of THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD--one of the truly great pictures of the 1930s. However, unlike many such films, this one is rather long--at almost an hour in length. Sadly, this film has no closed captions nor DVD captions.

Unfortunately, since the original film came out 65 years before this featurette, there is a weakness of the film--you don't get interviews with those involved with actually making the film. Almost all of them have died and Olivia de Havilland apparently wasn't available or perhaps wasn't interested in participating. However, despite this, the people who did contribute seemed to know quite a bit about the film and provided a few interesting tidbits that I have never heard of--though I won't spoil the film by discussing them further. In addition to these interviews, extensive clips of the original movie, the Douglas Fairbanks version and stills were used in addition.

Overall, a very interesting little film and a must-see for anyone, like myself, who loves THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD.