Production
The Adventures of Robin Hood was filmed on location in various areas of California. Bidwell Park in Chico stood in for Sherwood Forest, although one major scene was filmed at the locations "Lake Sherwood" and "Sherwood Forest," so named because they were the location sites for the 1922 Douglas Fairbanks production of Robin Hood. Several scenes were shot at the Warner Bros. Burbank Studios and the Warner Ranch in Calabasas. The archery tournament was filmed at Busch Gardens in Pasadena.
James Cagney was originally cast as Robin Hood, but walked out on his contract with Warner Bros., paving the way for Flynn, although filming was postponed three years.
It was produced at an estimated cost of $2 million, and was Warner Bros first color film utilizing three-strip Technicolor process. It was an unusually extravagant production for the Warner Bros. studio, which had made a name for itself in producing socially conscious low-budget gangster films, but their adventure movies starring Flynn had generated hefty revenue and Robin Hood was created to capitalize on this.
Padded stunt men and bit players were paid $150 per arrow for being shot by professional archer Howard Hill, who was cast as Owen the Welshman, an archer defeated in the tournament by Robin. To win the tournament, Robin split the arrow of Philip of Arras, a captain of the guard under Gisbourne, who had struck the bullseye. A third-season episode of the television show MythBusters tried to reproduce the feat, but failed. An examination of the images in slow motion led to speculation that the arrow split in the movie may have been made of bamboo, and have been previously split, the parts being held together with small rings. Buster Wiles - stuntman and close friend of Errol Flynn - maintains that the arrow splitting stunt was carried out using an extra large arrow (for the target) and that the second arrow had a wide, flat arrowhead and was fired along a wire. This created the illusion of Robin's arrow splitting Philips' - see My Days With Errol Flynn.
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