PHOTO FROM “NOVEMBER 23, 1946”
P.S. Rita turned 100 this year! Thank you, Rita, for all the beauty, talent, joy and love you brought the world!
— Tim
Archive for the ‘Flynn and…’ Category
Oh, O-Han-Zee!
22
Nov
In Celebration of Thanksgiving and the Native American Annual Harvest
COMFORTING SHADOWS IN CENTRAL PARK, 1941
Indians Adopt Errol Flynn. New York: “Movie actor Errol Flynn has to undergo a ‘tomahawking’ during the ceremony marking his adoption as a member of the United Sioux Tribe at the Indian’s Annual Harvest Festival in Central Park (Hechsher Playground) New York November 24. Named ‘Comforting Shadows’, Flynn is one of two notables ever to be given this particular adoption. It made him blood brother of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of New York City.”
ERROL GETS SIOUXED AND LOSES HIS SHOES
— Tim
The Hurricane
15
Nov
While it’s still hurricane season here in the U.S. …
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER – NOVEMBER 16, 1936
by LOUELLA O. PARSONS
Bargaining, I hear from a reliable authority, is going on between the Warner Brothers Studio and Samuel Goldwyn. Sam wants Errol Flynn for the lead in Hurricane and offers in exchange William Wyler, the director, and any other bit of property loose on the Goldwyn lot. First time I ever heard of a star being swapped for a director or vice versa. But Wyler is an ace director and is as valuable in his way as Flynn.
Not only has Sam set his heart on Flynn, but John Ford, who will direct for Goldwyn, also has the same idea. And talking about goofy trades, Ford agreed to direct Hurricane on condition that Sam buy him a boat and equipment to film exteriors in the South Seas where he is now vacationing. Margo, who is superb in Winterset, will probably get the lead opposite Flynn, with Basil Rathbone set for an important role.
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COULD THIS HAVE BEEN A GREAT ONE OF FLYNN? I believe so. With Wyler directing and the film earning three Academy Awards, but ultimately hampered by the casting of Jon Hall. Errol, IMO, could have lifted this to a Hollywood classic.
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Plus, there could have been some very good amour between Flynn and Lamour!
“The Hurricane is a 1937 film set in the South Seas, directed by John Ford and produced by Samuel Goldwyn Productions, about a Polynesian who is unjustly imprisoned. The climax features a special effects hurricane. It stars Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall, with Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Thomas Mitchell, Raymond Massey, John Carradine, and Jerome Cowan. James Norman Hall, Jon Hall’s uncle, co-wrote the novel of the same name on which The Hurricane is based.”
The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, winning in the category for Best Sound.
Best Sound Recording – Thomas T. Moulton
Best Supporting Actor (nomination) – Thomas Mitchell
Best Music, Score (nomination) – Alfred Newman
New York Times critic Frank S. Nugent praised the climactic special effect created by James Basevi, stating, “It is a hurricane to blast you from the orchestra pit to the first mezzanine. It is a hurricane to film your eyes with spin-drift, to beat at your ears with its thunder, to clutch at your heart and send your diaphragm vaulting over your floating rib into the region just south of your tonsils.”
He complimented the performances of all of the principal actors with the exception of Hall, whose Terangi was described as “a competent Tarzan”. He also faulted the uneven pacing, but in the end, characterized the film as “one of the most thrilling spectacles the screen has provided this year.”
— Tim
Welcome to Modesto, Errolivia
14
Nov
EIGHTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
November 15, 1938
EVENING HERALD EXPRESS
by Harrison Carroll
Fans up at Modesto drove Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn to take refuge in their rooms. The stars, in location for Dodge City, tried to eat in the hotel coffee shop, but admirers pushed in a plate glass window in on them. A jagged hunk of glass just missed Flynn’s nose and landed spear-like in his steak.
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BTW, This incident likely occurred at one of the best hotels in downtown Modesto (Hotels Covell, Hughson, or Modesto), on one of the very streets (10th or 11th Street) where George Lucas later cruised cars as a teenager, as famously depicted in American Graffiti. … Though a relatively small, California Central Valley town, Modesto was nationally-renowned for it’s architecture.
— Tim
Mail Bag! Charge of the Light Brigade and Wiggling Toes!
12
Nov
This from Joe Maletta who points out a blooper in Errol’s Charge of the Light Brigade:
Joe Maletta One of Flynn’s best! The young boy is Scottie Beckett who played Perma the son of J. Carrol Nash’s character. Puran Singh. There is a film blooper when Puran finds and holds his dead son after the massacre at Chukoti. Flynn is trying to console him and as he is doing so, the “dead” son is Wiggling his toes! A little levity aside during a sad moment.
Thanks, Joe!
Scottie Beckett with Errol
— David DeWitt
God Speed, Stan Lee
12
Nov
“When I was a kid, my favorite superhero was Errol Flynn, the actor. He played Robin Hood, he played Captain Blood… He was the best guy in the world with two guns, but he was always smiling and cheerful and rescuing women. I used to leave the theater with an imaginary sword looking for women to rescue. I can think of nothing more fun than spending your life rescuing women.”
-Rotten Tomatoes asked Stan Lee “Now, would you say that Errol Flynn’s movies may have influenced some of your work? ”
Stan Lee answered: “Absolutely. Errol Flynn was my god. I wanted to be Errol Flynn. I wanted to be Errol Flynn, and I used to — I mention this to people — I used to… I was about ten years old, I don’t know. I’d walk out of the theater after an Errol Flynn movie; I’d have a crooked little smile on my face, the way I thought he smiled, and an imaginary sword at my side, and I’d be hoping that I could find some bully picking on a little girl so I could come to her rescue, you know?”
-The 1965 Marvel Comics character Fandral, a companion of the Norse God Thor and a member of the Warriors Three, was based on the likeness of Flynn by co-creator Stan Lee. Actor Joshua Dallas, who played the character in Thor, based his portrayal on Flynn.
— Tim
Flyin’ Flynn – October 1937
24
Oct
“Warners have fired Errol a red-hot telegram, ordering him to discontinue
flying lessons on the Robin Hood location. Studio nearly had a fit
when it learned Flynn and Patric Knowles have been renting a plane at a Chico
airport and making night flights. Knowles, a licensed but comparatively
inexperienced pilot, was in the role of teacher. Flynn, of pupil.”
– October 26, Harrison Carroll
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“Garbed in their Robin Hood costumes, Errol Flynn and Patric Knowles scared a farmer near Chico, Calif., where the company is on location, by asking him how to kill a pig-one they claimed they found. He took one look at their costumes and slammed the door in their faces.”
– October 16, Hollywood’s Gabby Corners
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Here is Flight Instructor Knowles with His Illustrious Student Pilot ..
— Tim
Walking the Hall of Justice — October 22, 1942
23
Oct
In this October 22,1942 AP file photo, actor Errol Flynn is flanked by his attorneys Robert E. Ford, left, and Jerry Giesler, right.
— Tim
Yours Truly? Fake News?
21
Oct
QUOTED FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
REPEATED BY TCM
“Character actor James McCallion began his performing career as a child in the 1920s and acted on screen until the 1970s. He began acting on Broadway as a 9-year-old, opposite Errol Flynn in “Yours Truly.” His film career began with several roles in 1939, including one in the drama “Pride of the Blue Grass,” with Edith Fellows. After a hiatus that lasted a decade and a half, he returned in the 1954 adventure “Vera Cruz,” a Robert Aldrich film starring Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster. In the 1950s he appeared with Edward G. Robinson in “Illegal,” a noir thriller playing gangster Allen Parker, and had a small part in Alfred Hitchcock’s “North By Northwest.” He also appeared in the great director’s TV show “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” as well as numerous other TV dramas. His biggest television part was a starring role in “National Velvet,” a series that ran for two seasons, beginning in 1960. He had a role in the biographical film “PT 109,” based on the wartime experiences of John F. Kennedy, and was a supporting actor in the 1965 comedy “Strange Bedfellows.” Many of his later film roles came in Westerns, such as the 1970 comedic feature “Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County” and the drama “Gunfight in Abilene.” He was also a frequent guest star on the detective dramas of the era like “Cannon,” “Ironside,” and”The Streets of San Francisco.””
Should TCM update/correct their bio to refetence another Australian-born American actor, not Flynn. Perhaps one that once appeared in the same film as Mr. & Mrs. Flynn?
— Tim
A Year for Paternity? — — 75 Years Ago Today
19
Oct
Did Errol conceive two children in 1940? Sean, and Marilyn??
Shirley, or Shirley Not??
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Oct. 18, 1943: Los Angeles is in the middle of a paternity suit brought by Shirley Evans Hassau, 21, against Errol Flynn. Hassau charged that Flynn was the father of her daughter Marilyn, who was 3. Hassau was seeking $1,750 a month child support, $10,000 in attorneys fees, $5,000 for hospital expenses and $2,000 in court costs.
An aunt, Florence Muller of San Francisco, had raised Marilyn since she was 5 weeks old and refused to let Hassau see her, The Times said.
Hassau’s suits against Flynn were dismissed in 1951. In 1940, two weeks after Marilyn was born, Flynn agreed to pay Hassau $2,000 although he denied being the father. The actor said he wanted to avoid a long court trial and adverse publicity.
— Tim
