How I became a Flynn fan

I am glad to be invited as a new author to this blog. I apologize my not so good English language writing, but I have studied it only three years at school for forty years ago. During some ten years I have read quite many books in English and corresponded with quite many people. This helps me a little. – – In this first blog writing I want to tell something about how it started in my case – this interest in Errol Flynn and becoming a fan of his.

 I am Finnish and born in 1954 in Lappeenranta, a town in South Eastern part of Finland. Our family got the first TV in 1963. It meant that we started to watch many kind of programs. Among them were many serials and movies. I hadn´t heard about Errol Flynn before I first time saw some of his legendary films. This happened in 1971 when I was sixteen years old. Those films were The Sea Hawk, Captain Blood and Gentleman Jim. After these films Errol Flynn was one of the absolute top actors on my ranking list. The thing that especially made me a fan of his was his ability to use the sword. In two of these films were some remarkable sword duels and I admired the skills of Errol Flynn in using his sword. The most exciting was the one against Basil Rathbone in Captain Blood. In this film acted also the most charming young actress that I hadn´t seen ever before – Olivia de Havilland. She became my favourite, too.

 One thing that also mattered in my becoming an Errol Flynn fan must have been the fact that I first saw those two sea adventures among his many films. Sea was the element that I loved then and even more now. Well, I had never seen the sea in my entire life, but loved it anyway. It must have come from books that I had read in my childhood – books by Enid Blyton. The Famous Five had many adventures on or near the sea. They made a big impression on me. Those sea adventure films are still the greatest favourites of mine among all Errol Flynn films.

 During the seventies I only saw one more film of Errol Flynn and it was Dodge City. I became a believer in 1976 and lost all my interest in TV and movies. It lasted for a long time – almost 25 years. I bought my first satellite TV in 2000 and thus I could see TCM channel. And there I saw those favourite films of my youth. Among them were those wonderful Errol Flynn classics and many more. After those decades they aroused nostalgic feelings in me.

— Juhani