Today's Article - Robin Hood (1922 film)

This article is for quizzes on Tuesday February 23rd...

Robin Hood, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Wallace Beery, is the first motion picture ever to have a Hollywood premiere, held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre on October 18, 1922. The movie's full title, under which it was copyrighted, is Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood. It was one of the most expensive films of the 1920s, with a budget estimated at approximately one million dollars. The film was a smash hit and generally received favorable reviews.

A huge castle set and an entire 12th century village of Nottingham were constructed at the Pickford-Fairbanks Studio in Hollywood. Some sets were designed by architect Lloyd Wright. Director Allan Dwan later recalled that Fairbanks was so overwhelmed by the scale of the sets that he considered canceling production at one point.

The story was adapted for the screen by Fairbanks (as "Elton Thomas"), Kenneth Davenport, Edward Knoblock, Allan Dwan and Lotta Woods, and was produced by Fairbanks for his own production company, Douglas Fairbanks Pictures Corporation, and distributed by United Artists, a company owned by Fairbanks, his wife Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith. This swashbuckling adventure was based on the legendary tale of the Medieval hero, Robin Hood, and was the first production to present many of the elements of the legend that became familiar to movie audiences in later versions, although an earlier treatment had been filmed a decade before in the woods around Fort Lee, New Jersey, featuring even more flamboyant costumes than the Fairbanks version.