Up the Sepik with Young Captain Flynn

March 13, 1936

Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express

The most dramatic movie premier of 1936 took place not in Hollywood or in New York, but in Belfast Ireland when Captain Blood opened there the other day with Errol Flynn’s father and mother in attendance. They hadn’t seen him since 1932 and, suddenly, there he was on the screen, their turned into a movie star.

Reporting the incident, the Belfast papers also carried an interview with R. L. Simpson, who adventured with Flynn to New Guinea. He told a story about the actor that not even the studio knew.

Seems that a motion picture troupe hired Flynn to take them in a 20-ton schooner up the unexplored Sepik River, a stream infested with crocadiles and transversing jungles crawling with hostile natives. Sure enough, the troupe was ambushed and five of the police escorts were struck by poisoned arrows. Flynn and the crew were able to repel the attack with rifle fire and to get the troupe back to civilization.

…

Superb video featuring multifarious primitive tribes and exotic cultures Flynn may have crossed paths with, if not crossed swords with, in Papua New Guinea – headhunters and cannibals included:

— Tim