The Errol Flynn Blog

It was almost the Bad Boy and the Bad Guy in The Sea Hawk.

He played the heavy many films, appearing in major movies with with Hollywood heavyweights like Bogart, Fonda, Edward G., Maureen O’Hara, Jimmy Stewart, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Spencer Tracy, et al.

Later in his career he lived the dream of acting with this exquisitely beautiful woman:

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Excellent question, barb! I believe that in 1935 Warners was intending to remain relatively faithful to Sabatini’s novel(s) and/or their silent Sea Hawk hit of 1924, which made a lot of noise at the box office. …If so, I suppose Barton MacLane was being considered for the spectacularly notorious, lovable-rogue role Wallace Beery played.

Warners, however, changed The Sea Hawk dramatically (literally and figuratively) subsequent to Hitler’s aggression in Europe, with Elizabethan-era Spain became a proxy for the Nazis.

Here’s how Barton looked n The Spanish Main many years later: Very Wally Beeryish:

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And his Wallace Beery as Captain Jasper Leigh in The Sea Hawk. No Wolfington and no Thorpe, not in Sabatinii’s book, nor in the silent feature of 1924.

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