The athleticism in this Warner Brothers swashbuckler is shown to be of a dubious character when Eugene Pallette, built like an egg, outmaneuvers Errol Flynn in a five-minute stick fight on a foot-wide plank. From that moment, it is plain that the memorized moments in the Robin Hood legend are going to be reiterated dutifully, no matter how much stretching of probability and of imagination is required. Another instance: after setting up an archery contest expressly as a trap for Robin Hood, the heinous Prince and his henchmen fail to guess the identity of the bashful, hooded stranger until he dramatically splits an arrow in two in the center of the bull's-eye. It is not probability, however, but rather the overall rambunctiousness and the exquisite, jewelly color that spirit the viewer through to the climactic sword duel, with the two arch-rivals casting shadows thirty feet high inside a monstrous underground chamber. With Olivia De Havilland as Maid Marian, Alan Hale as Little John; two top contract cinematographers, Sol Polito and Tony Gaudio; and two top contract directors, Michael Curtiz and William Keighley. (1938) — Duncan Shepherd