14 thoughts on “MCM: Errol Flynn

  1. I love love LOVE Errol Flynn films and have since I was a kid. the Sea Hawk and Robin Hood are my faves, but I have always wondered about the little glittery sequins on his tunic!!! LOL Throw in the Korngold scores and I will happily rematch any of his films a hundred times!!! Thanks for this post.

  2. I would have said Douglas Fairbanks was the first swashbuckler. I have always had very mixed feelings about Flynn. I thought his best acting job was late in his career in “The Roots of Heaven.” Costume-wise, maybe “Fire Over England.” He was often undisciplined, unreliable, and at the same time very generous but also very selfish. In “Robin Hood” he completely disregarded the choreography for the big fight, leaving Rathbone to salvage it with some help from the film editor. To quote former housemate David Niven: You could always count on Errol — he’ll let you down every time.” Best story about Flynn was when John Barrymore died. He’d been staying with Flynn at the time. The next night, Raoul Walsh and some others stole the body from the morgue and put it in a chair in Flynn’s living room, drink on the side and smoking cigarette in hand. Flynn walked in, turned on the light, and fainted. His autobio, “My Wicked, Wicked Ways,” is a cautionary tale at best.

    1. Flynn wasn’t in “Fire Over England.” And speaking for myself, it makes no sense to carry on about what a debauched human Flynn was – it was pretty well-known and obvious. Never wanted to date him – but enjoyed his films.

      1. And I should add that I have read “The Moon’s a Balloon” by Niven as well as “My Wicked Wicked Ways” – so I wasn’t surprised by the things you added to the discussion. I enjoyed his on-screen persona in costume dramas.

    2. To quote former housemate David Niven: “You could always count on Errol — he’ll let you down every time.”

      Brilliant!

      I love the actors of the Studio System. They always had the perfectly timed quip on and off stage.

  3. Errol Flynn was my very first film crush. I was around 6 and his films were playing on TV. I knew all the film titles and his character’s names, that’s how obsessed I was. He still has a very special place in my heart ♥

  4. I misread the caption. I’d have to say “The Sea Hawk” for fave costume film.
    Ordinarily, I’m of the “All you owe ’em is a good performance,” school, but Flynn always made such a splash of it all.

  5. He wanted to call his autobiography ‘In Like Me’ but the publishers wouldn’t let him.
    I’ve always enjoyed his movies- Captain Blood is still my favorite. He was so gloriously over-the-top in everything he did; his extended facial expressions, his ‘fist on hips laugh’, and his broody romance eyes. He even wrote an adventure novel, which is sitting on my bookshelf waiting for the right moment.
    The fight scene between Flynn and Rathbone in Captain Blood is fantastic, and for me is only topped by the Elwes/Patinkin duel in Princess Bride; mostly because Elwes and Patinkin actually learned to fence and did the scene themselves, while Flynn (according to Rathbone) “couldn’t fence his way out of a paper bag.”
    Flynn was a truly gorgeous man who made some wonderfully fun movies.
    Shame he was such an asshole. MAN he was an asshole.

  6. My favorite would be “THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE” (1936). He didn’t get Olivia de Havilland. In fact, he lost her to Patric Knowles (who was dreamy in his own quiet way). But he was great in a very complex role.

    By the way, Rathbone never fenced against Flynn in “THE SEA HAWK” (1940). Flynn could fence his way out of a paper bag. He was just so damn lazy about it. Until “THE SEA HAWK”, in which he really displayed how well he could fence on screen.

  7. I know Errol Flynn only from what I’ve seen on TV, alas, I’m not old enough to have seen his films first run. But he was great, and he had great material to work with. It is unfortunate for today’s screen actors, they may be talented, too, but they, for the most part, have such dismal material. The last movie I saw, I forget the name, I thought did somebody really get paid to write that?

    But back to Errol Flynn, I’ve been able to acquire some of his movies on DVD, and can now watch them anytime.

  8. My first real movie crush. I could go on and on and on… i love The Sea Hawk, but I think if you want a really good performance, the ones that stand out for me are “That Forsyte Woman” (he had a good time making it and loved being on the Metro lot); and I think he was so good in “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex”; and “Uncertain Glory” with Paul Lukas. A bad guy who makes the ultimate sacrifice and does the right thing- never fails to move me. And, “Dive Bomber” (which I think was Alexis Smith’s first film.) And, “The Dawn Patrol”. Wow! What a super film! (I also recommend the documentary “In the Wake of the Zaca”- see? I really am a big fan!) Another favourite, which happened to be the biggest Christmas 1945 box office, was San Antonio. With Alexis Smith.

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