Goofs for
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) More at IMDbPro »

• Anachronisms: A car can be seen in the background when Will Scarlett gets off his horse to go to the aid of Much (who has just fought with Dickon Malbete).
  
  
• Continuity: When Robin delivers the deer to Nottingham, it can be clearly seen that he has only five arrows in his quiver. In the fight scene that follows, he fires 12 arrows, and the number in the quiver never decreases.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Robin's executioner is shot, he falls onto a spear-point, which is seen to bend double as it is dropped. Similarly, when Robin threatens Marion's cell guard, his sword is definitely bent. His sword also bends in the final battle, when Robin knocks a candle off a table.
  
  

• Continuity: During the banquet in the forest, Robin begins to eat a whole leg of mutton. After a brief close-up of Marion we see the meat again and the joint is eaten down to the bone.
  
  
• Continuity: When Robin Hood escapes the trap in the great hall, Sir Guy passes through the door; in the next shot he is at the back of the crowd nowhere near the door.
  
  
• Continuity: In the final duel, Robin pushes Guy of Guisborne off the stairs and Guy loses his sword which slides down the steps. Robin jumps down the side of the stairs and gives Guy back his sword which now is lying at Guy's feet.
  
  
• Continuity: When Robin is rescued from being hanged, he jumps on and rides away on a bay horse. When he arrives at the gate, he is riding a sorrel horse. When he rides to the gate, grabs the rope and cuts it, the horse is bay again. Also notice that during the same scenes, when he is riding the sorrel horse, his hood is nearly falling off, when he is on the bay horse, it is securely tied. (A bay is a brown horse with a black mane, tail, forelock and legs. A sorrel is a horse that is reddish including the mane and tail.)
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Friar Tuck is about to carry Robin on his back into the stream, his robes are already wet, presumably from an earlier take.
  
  
• Continuity: During Robin's escape from his execution his hands are tied behind his back, yet when he leaps onto the horse his hands shoot forward to steady himself.
  
  
• Continuity: There is a scene where a Norman knight is accosting a young lady and he is shot in the back with an arrow (which also douses a candle). If you look closely at the Knight's back, you can see 2 holes in his tunic which appear to have been made by arrow shots in previous takes.
  
  
• Continuity: Just before Will Scarlett finds Much the Miller's Son after he has killed the King's would-be assassin, there was supposed to be a scene where King Richard fights Friar Tuck with his fists and wins, then is asked to prove his mettle by fighting Robin Hood himself. This scene was deleted, with the result that in the finished film, King Richard and Robin Hood appear to be about to fight for no reason.
  
  
• Continuity: Robin's position in the water changes after the sword fight with Friar Tuck.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sir Guy rides off, Much is holding the reigns of Robin's horse. In the next cut, Much approaches Robin and has no hold of the reigns.
  
  
• Continuity: The chicken Robin eats after greeting Prince John is inconsistent.
  
  
• Continuity: During the first fight scene in the castle, there is an arrow in the door to the right which we did not see Robin shoot.
  
  
• Continuity: When fighting Little John, the log is wet before Robin falls in the water.
  
  
• Continuity: After his capture, the distant shots show Robin two steps below Prince John and Sir Guy. But during their conversation, they are on the same level.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Camera shadow is visible on the row of pike tips at the execution, as the camera pans in towards the dignitary seating area.
  
  
• Plot holes: King Richard suddenly turns up in England at the Boar's Head Inn without any explanation of how he escaped or why he is there (the explanatory scenes having been cut from the movie prior to its release).
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In many instances, when Robin's men engage the soldiers carrying pikes, the "metal" points are seen to wobble back and forth wildly, revealing that they are actually made of rubber.
  
  
• Continuity: After telling Prince John and Sir Guy of Gisburne, the Bishop of the Black Canons is told to go back to his abbey. The head of an abbey was the abbot, but the abbot's scenes were given to the Bishop of the Black Canons and the dialogue wasn't changed.
  
  
• Continuity: During the final fight with Gisbourne, a candelabra is knocked over and Robin is trapped under it while Gisbourne gloats. A few seconds later, Robin gets up and the fight continues and the candles have dripped what looks like an hour's worth of wax onto the floor.
  
  
• Continuity: During the final fight scene between Robin Hood and Guy of Gisbourne, when Guy knocks Robin over with a table, the leg of the table breaks off. In the next shot, when Robin kicks the table at Guy, the leg has re-attached itself.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The film takes place in 1191 and in the banquet scene Prince John says that Richard the Lionheart had been captured in Austria. In 1191 Richard the Lionheart was seizing Acre from Muslim control and was not captured in Austria until December of 1192.
  
  
• Factual errors: At the time of King Richard the Lion Heart's reign, the syllable "Fitz" was always added to the name of an illegitimate child of the aristocracy. Yet Marion FITZwalter is referred to by the title "Lady" even though the illegitimate children of the aristocracy of the day could not inherit titles.
  
  
• Continuity: During the final fight with Gisbourne, Robin hits a candle with his sword, which bends as it’s not made of steel. A frame later and sword is straightened again.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As Robin Hood makes his escape from the gallows, the top of the castle in the background, matted in the previous shots, is missing. The lower part disappears behind some foreground scenery but the upper floors fail to emerge on the other side.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the archery contest at the end with Dickenson when the arrows are shot they have a old fashioned metal tip. When the arrows hit the target they have a modern metal tip.
  
  
• Continuity: During Robin's escape from the banquet Sir Guy passes through the door twice.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The target board is clearly seen under the garments of most of the victims of arrow shots.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Robin captures Sir Guy in the forest and his men open the treasure chest the "coins" are blank slugs.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When fighting Robin, Little John, using his staff, supposedly hits Robin on the top of his foot, causing him to fall into the stream. However, the end of the staff actually misses the foot by a very wide margin, hitting only the log.
  
  

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