The Warner Brothers are sincerely worried over their failure to locate Errol Flynn, who was hastily summoned back to Hollywood when it was learned he was planning to penetrate war-torn Spain. Errol was in Paris, and last week he told his wife, Lili Damita, he was leaving for Spain. He left, while Lili remained in Paris. He didn’t tell her where he was going in Spain, and apparently Lili didn’t bother to inquire. Robert Schless, head of Warner Paris office, has not been able to locate him.
Errol, when he left, was determined to do some war corresponding in Spain. He started to make arrangements with the United States for some special articles, but the studio jumped in and soured the deal. Errol threatened that he would make arrangements with an English syndicate.This he may have done.
Warners cabled him to be back by April 15, to start The Perfect Specimen. I doubt if they actually had a picture ready for him, but hoped to get him back on a plea of urgency. Miriam Hopkins has been announced for the co-starring spot in The Perfect Specimen, but that announcement is quite premature, for she has not been signed for the role.
“A mile long parade featured the actors and elected officials, including the governors of Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. This was followed by a rodeo” at McCarty Stadium. Though there was not enough time to stage a full-fledged rodeo, the event inspired Dodge City to have its first real rodeo, the Boot Hill Roundup, later that year. This event has evolved into today’s PRCA’s Dodge City Day’s Roundup Rodeo.
Interesting that when Errol Flynn leads The Charge of the Light Brigade in the Warner Brothers film he will be carrying a sword that is an actual relic of the charge. It was supplied by a Los Angeles man, George A. Bowman, whose brother got it from a survivor of the battle.
Did you know that the first Victoria crosses were struck from the metal of Russian cannons captured on this fateful day, and were given to all the survivors of the charge?
…
Was this the sword? Or was this a prop? Was such a battle “relic” really used in the movie?
“The Victoria Cross is the highest honour that can be awarded to members of the British and Commonwealth Armed Forces for gallantry in active service. This decoration consists of a Maltese cross formed from the cannon captured from the Russians. This bronze metal is cut from cannons captured from the Russians at Sebastopol during the Crimean War.”
Although maritime laws permit a captain to perform a perfectly legal marriage ceremony, it isn’t as easy as it might sound. There are certain official papers that a seaworthy captain must have.
Of course, Errol Flynn is the captain of his yacht, but that doesn’t alone give him the right to tie the holy bonds of matrimony, as he was informed by local maritime officials.
And that revelation somewhat changes the marital plans of Gertrude Hemmer and Ralph Cobley, Miami friends of Errol’s, who planned to have the Warner star perform the wedding ceremony for them aboard his new yacht, which stops over at the southern city en route to Hollywood. The couple will be married on shore and will spend a brief honeymoon aboard Flynn’s boat.
in January of 1947 the National Geographic Magazine published an article called “The Errol Flynn of Sponge Divers”.
The Errol of this and the Flynn of that were honorary titles at the time. But in the case of one exceptionally dangerous profession we can well picture our Hollywood hero genuinely taking a liking to the complimentary comparison.
World traveller and life time adventurer that he was, I wonder if he read this article and got the idea for the movie “MARU MARU” then and there, or if the namesake hotel in Tanzania did the deed.
Take a deep breath and dive in here yourselves: sanceau.com…
“Beautiful spring day, warm sunshine, country beautiful. How can people fight a war in this lovely weather? Four hours train journey from here the most savage cruel patricidal war is being waged.” First entry in Errol’s Spanish Civil War Diary- March 26, 1937 (83 years ago today)
“In 1935, Flynn married French-American actress Lili Damita (divorcing in 1942), with whom he had a very stormy relationship, with frequent physical fights. They were called the “Fighting Flynns,” and he called his wife “Tiger Lili.” When his friend Dr. Herman F. Erben Read the rest of this entry »
Errol Flynn, the husky Irish actor at Warners, gets his second film assignment. He will be see as a pirate with Robert Donat in Captain Blood. He is the first member of a supporting cast selected. Now it is uncertain if Jean Muir will have the feminine lead.
…
Midsummer Night Players: Ross Alexander & Jean Muir, Olivia DeHavilland & William Powell
After she made it big with Errol, Olivia won two Best Actress Oscars. She won her first in 1948 for “To Each His Own”. Seventy years ago today she won her second, for “The Heiress”. Below is Jimmy Stewart’s announcement of her winning, and her acceptance speech:
…
P.S. Ralph could tell us better than anyone else on earth who won Best Actor
All the extravagant adjectives in the book, plus a few lalapaloozas especially constructed for the occasion, may be employed without challenge by the Warner Brothers in calling attention to their latest prospection in the epic vein, “Virginia City.” For such a bundle of action-melodrama, such an excess of old-time super-colossalisms has not been seen in years to compare with this veritable archive of familiar outdoor thrill tricks, now showing at the Strand.
Practically everything guaranteed by long experience to stimulate an audience’s excitement—everything except technicolor—has been utilized by the Warner workshop to contrive this two-hour Blitzkrieg upon the human nerves.
From the moment that Federal Captain Bradford and Captain Irby of the Confederate Army square off in a Richmond prison, you and they are in for it, with such successive episodes as an explosive escape from the prison, a fight atop a runaway stagecoach, the usual roistering in a frontier town saloon, an outlaw raid upon a covered-wagon train and the arrival of the United States cavalry to while away the time. There is even a last-minute pardon from the lips of President Lincoln.
Put together as it is from patches which have the well-worn look, it is inevitable that this story of an unsuccessful Confederate attempt to run gold from Virginia City during the last days of the Civil War should be strictly synthetic. There is something depressingly pat about the personal interludes. You just know the beautiful Confederate spy, who doubles as a dancing girl, will fall in love with the Union captain, that she will agonize between love and duty, that the end will be duly heroic.
And, as played by Errol Flynn and Miriam Hopkins, the leading roles become no less obviously carpentered. Mr. Flynn is about as mobile as a floor walker; Miss Hopkins recites her stilted lines by rote. Only Randolph Scott as the Confederate captain behaves as though he was actually on the spot.
But waving the individuals aside, which is what is usually done in outdoor thrillers, there is enough concentrated action in the picture, enough of the old-time Western sweep, to make it lively entertainment. After all, with such models for obvious reference as “The Covered Wagon,” “Stagecoach” and even a bit of “Gone With the Wind,” Director Michael Curtiz could hardly have missed.
