My dear fellow Flynn fans,
I came acoss some very interesting, little known facts in Italian newspapers while researching fo my William Tell- book project.
Did you kow that…
…Errol wanted his son Sean to play the part of Tell`s son Jimmy?
…Jack Cardiff endorsed his choice?
…but casting director Michal Waszynski opted for Fellini disciple Guido Martufi?
…that the final battle scenes on horseback (full not empty horses!) were filmed first?
…that a helicopter was sceduled to film these?
…an avalanche was to be set off Mount Blanc for the dramatic film ending?
…Errol`s skyblue car, a Frazer Nash, was guided by a chauffeur named Erich?
…that it was called “la freccia azzura di Guglielmo Tell” (skyblue arrow of William Tell) by local town people of Courmayeur?
…it was seized first by local authorities for unpaid hotel bills, mostly long distance telefon calls?
…that he luckily had another set of wheels, since he had purchased a Mercedes Benz in Germany that year?
…that Errol planed to star in Jules Verne`s “Michel Strogoff” in one of his next movies?
If so, bravo! If not, so didn`t I.
All the best,
— shangheinz
Fascinating! Great stuff!
The question (as always with Flynn) is: how much of this is truth and what is fiction? You could write an entire book about the films he wanted/was supposed to star in!
That, dear Ginger Inga,
depends if you believe in newspaper articles as reliable sources in the first place. I find them the most accurate because they deliver spontaneous answers to straight foreward questions by the reporters. Even if Errol, being the free spirit that he was, didn`t follow through on many announcements, it at least shows us he was toying with certain ideas. He was an avid reader and in his new role as producer forced to feed the media food for thought on a constant basis. Any historical literature came to him handily for that matter.
I was just remarking this, Heinz, because about 90% of the stuff that was written about Errol in German newspapers of the time was complete rubbish. And not only in German newspapers. I remember an American or British article about Errol which stated that his favourite director was Michael Curtiz. Well, maybe he was after all… In any case, I would say one has to be very careful, and unless one cannot find the same piece of information in another paper – don’t trust it unconditionally.