Welcome to Errol’s “circa 1915” childhood home at 60 Duke Street in Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tasmania,
‘A beach, Sandy Bay, was not far away and I was often there, swimming from the age of three. The beach was of hard brown sand, the water freezing cold. Mother was a good swimmer, and she took me there very often.’
– My Wicked, Wicked Ways
Here is the park/preserve at Short Beach in Sandy Bay named in Errol’s honor:
— Tim
I’d Like to Volunteer, Sir’
Just before parachuting into Nazi-occupied Europe, Fayette Richardson asked himself an existential question: “My God Most Powerful, what am I doing here?”
The thought had to be on the minds of myriad soldiers on June 6, 1944. It was D-Day, the launch of a long-awaited campaign by the U.S. and British armies to free the nations of Western Europe that Hitler had conquered.
Mounted from airfields and ports in Great Britain, it was the largest amphibious assault in history. Code-named Operation Overlord, it dramatically changed the course of World War II.
Seventy-five years later, the ranks have thinned of those who braved machine gun fire on French beaches that were marked on their maps with American names — Utah and Omaha. Richardson died in 2010. But fortunately for us and for future generations, he and other veterans kept diaries, wrote memoirs or recorded their recollections.
As a boy in Machias, N.Y., Richardson was fascinated by airplanes and war movies. At 17, he enlisted but didn’t qualify for pilot training. Instead, he was asked to join a parachute regiment’s Pathfinder team: those who jump first and guide those who follow. It was strictly voluntary, his commanding officer said.
“I think of Errol Flynn and how he and David Niven volunteered to do things in ‘Dawn Patrol,’ ” Richardson recalled. He told his commanding officer: “I’d like to volunteer, sir.”
www-chicagotribune-com.cdn.ampproject.org…
— Tim
June 1, 1935
Film Daily
Ralph Wilk
A Little from Lots
Carl Laemmle Jr., David O. Selznick, Pandro Berman, Frederick Marsh, King Vidor, Ralph Bellamy, Sam Jaffee, Paul Lukas, Elliot Nugent, Warren Hymer, Solly Baisano, Gilbert Roland, Wells Root, Ainsworth Morgan, Mickey Rooney, Oliver H.P. Garrett, Gene Thackeray, Albert J. Cohen, Merritt Hurlburd, Edith Fitzgerald, Mrs. E.A. Dupont, Mrs. George Fitzmaurice, Mr. and Mrs. Karl Struss, Charles Farrell, Paul de Ricou, Larry Bachman, Ted von Eltz, Charles Butterworth, Martin Cornica, Errol Flynn, John Krimsky are among the players in the tenth annual motion picture tennis tournament. Frank X. Shields, noted international player, is in the men’s and mixed doubles, but not in singles.
***
Tennis great Frank Shields, 1933
His granddaughter, Brooke Shields, famously filmed much of Blue Lagoon near Errol’s estate on the North Shore of Jamaica, 1980
— Tim
The most highly coveted of ornamental plants, the delicate, exotic and graceful orchid represents love, luxury, beauty and strength. In ancient Greece, orchids were associated with virility. There are numerous kinds of orchids but the black orchid is regarded the most intriguing and powerful of all. The Greek word “orchis” means “testicle” and is a symbol of virility. Ancient Greeks believed that they could control a baby’s gender by eating orchid roots. If they wished a son, the father would eat a large and new orchid tuber. If they wished a daughter, the mother would eat a small tuber. This belief, and other perceived magical sexual and spiritual powers of orchids, helped them remain popular into modern times.
Perfect for Virile Errol’s Hollywood Hot House, described below!
May 10, 1938
Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express
When Errol Flynn gets back from his Bahamas trip in about three weeks, Hollywood will get a floral novelty. He is bringing several hundred cuttings of a black orchid, found when he and Lili Damita were exploring the southern tip of Cat Cay Island.
His agent got an enthusiastic wire today ordering the ‘for sale’ sign off real estate the star owns on the tip of Laurel Canyon and instructing him to start building a modernistic hot house in which to grow the exotic blooms. Flynn plans to raise them for the Hollywood market.
***
Fascinating footage of Cat Cay Island circa when Errol first sailed there, shortly after he purchased Sirocco:
— Tim
From
From this week’s Fayetteville Flyer:
“Northern Pursuit”
“Though he was Australian-born, Errol Flynn was one of the United States’ most popular commodities during World War II.
Flynn made a name for himself swashbuckling across the silver screen in such classics of the 1930a as 1935’s “Captain Blood” and 1938’s “Adventures of Robin Hood,” but during the early 1940s few Hollywood stars made more of a splash in war pictures than Flynn. Films like 1941’s “Dive Bomber” and 1942’s “Desperate Journey” cemented him as one of Hollywood’s greatest stay-at-home warriors.
One of Flynn’s most overlooked pictures “Northern Pursuit” comes from the same era and is set against a World War II backdrop as he stars as Steve Wagner, a former corporal in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that goes undercover to root out a covert Nazi scheme.
The film, which Turner Classic Movie channel is scheduled to play at 7 p.m. (CT) Tuesday was Flynn’s first movie after being acquitted of two statutory rape charges in 1942. Though Flynn’s was never as popular after the trial as he was before, he still knew how to carry adventure movies and romance pictures alike.
“Northern Pursuit” is a solid thriller, directed by the capable Raoul Walsh, who also directed Flynn in the Gen. George Armstrong Custer biopic “They Died With Their Boots On” in 1941.
Walsh amps up the tension and leaves the viewer questioning whether Flynn is a turncoat or not through much of the movie which co-stars Julie Bishop, Helmut Dantine, John Ridgely, and Gene Lockhart.
Avalanche!
— Tim
Extracted and adapted from Swordplay & Swashbucklers: Hollywood Ships & Shores in Miniature
Before the advent of CGI, many swashbuckler films used models of ship and shore, along with full-size ships built on sound stages, to both recreate environments no longer available and also to save money. To some degree the early miniatures may seem quaint today, as compared to CGI, although in my opinion bad CGI is worse–more jarring to the eye–by far than an obvious model.
These old sets and scenes evoke nostalgia for the entire spectacle of old Hollywood swashbucklers: the cinemas with their great screens and clicking film projectors, the lasting impressions left by thundering broadsides and clashing swords, and above all the image of pirate ships in tropical waters. Here are a few:
Above, the Albatross, commanded by Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn) arrives in a secluded cove on the Isthmus of Panama in order to raid the silver trains. The film scenes set in the Old World are in black and white, while those in the Americas are in sepia.
Only the film title is actually based on the novel by Rafael Sabatini, which tells the story of an English gentleman who turns Barbary corsair in an act of revenge. The 1940 film is a not even thinly-veiled wartime propaganda piece, albeit an enjoyable one. English sea dogs are renamed in the script as patriotic sea hawks suppressed by treasonous machinations until the doughty hero (Errol Flynn) reveals the treachery and England arms the sea hawks against Nazi Germany Imperial Spain. For more information try The Sea Hawk, edited by Rudy Behlmer. It’s a fun read for anyone interested in the script and the film’s history.
Next, we have the models of Port Royal and the French flagship used in the finale. This image is not of an actual scene from the 1935 Captain Blood starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Basil Rathbone, but of the set prior to shooting.
Of course, the real Port Royal looked nothing like this. It was actually crammed with English-style brick buildings of two and even three floors, unlike this Southern California Spanish colonial revival-influenced town. But it’s sets like these in Hollywood swashbucklers that have influenced our notions of what the seventeenth century Caribbean looked like. In fact, the region at the time had a wide variety or environments and architecture.
Above we have the battle in Port Royal harbor during the finale of Captain Blood: the Arabella on the left versus the French flagship on the right. N. B. Royal sails (the smallest on the ship on the right, the fourth sail from the bottom) were not used in this era. Their use here is an anachronism. In fact, only exceedingly rarely was the topgallant sail (the third sail from the bottom, used on “tall ships” on the fore and main masts) seen on the mizzenmast or sprit-mast on the bowsprit. I know of only two seventeenth century instances, each noted as being highly unusual. One was Kidd’s Adventure Galley in the very late seventeenth century, the other was a Spanish ship in 1673.
Over-large pirate ship and treasure ship of the “Great Mogul” in Against All Flags. The ships are engaged under full sail, a practice generally not seen in reality except in the case of a running fight, but quite common in Hollywood because it looks good. Here, both ships would have stripped to “fighting sail” for a variety of reasons, including simplified ship-handling in action. The film stars Errol Flynn, as Brian Hawke, in one of his last swashbucklers, followed finally by The Master of Ballantrae in 1953 and Crossed Swords in 1954.
***
Scenes from The Sea Hawk using above-described ship models, miniatures, and techniques:
— Tim
April 26, 1938
Elizabeth Yeaman
Hollywood Citizen News
Warners are remaining absolutely mum on the subject of Errol Flynn, whose picture, Robin Hood, was enthusiastically greeted at a preview last night. Flynn, so far as known, is still aboard his yacht in waters off the Bahama Islands. Frank Heacock, a member of the publicity department who is with Flynn, has communicated several times with the studio, but apparently Heacock cannot get Flynn to say yes or no about returning for Sister Act.
It may be that Flynn thinks his absence speaks for itself. However, with the picture ready to start and the rest of the cast all lined up, a delay in production will be an expensive matter. If Flynn should return promptly, he probably would be forgiven and put right into the picture. But in view of the silence and his absence, naturally the studio is moving to protect itself against delay.
As a result, Jeffrey Lynn has been given extensive tests for the past few days, for the role that Flynn was set to play in Sister Act. Lynn is 27, and those who saw him on the local road show of “Brother Rat” will remember him as a member of that company. Warners were immediately interested in him and sought his release from George Abbott. He was brought into the studio last January, and has been going through a grooming process. His first movie role of any size was When Were You Born?, which has not been released. And he had the role of romantic interest opposite Kay Francis in In Every Woman’s Life.
If Lynn suddenly steps into the lead opposite the Lane sisters in Sister Act, it will be a very sudden leap up the ladder of opportunity.
***
The Jeffrey Lynn story:
www.outofthepastblog.com…
In Lynn, each girl sees the attainment of her desires… See, beginning at 1:01 in the official trailer below:
Haven’t seen it anywhere, but methinketh the name “Jeffrey Lynn” was likely created to sound like “Errol Flynn”. His real name was Ragnar Godfrey Lind.
— Tim
April 23, 1938
Louella O. Parsons
Los Angeles Examiner
Dozens of dizzy rumors floating about Warners efforts to get Errol back in town in a hurry for Because of a Man. One yarn is that Errol is quite ill and unable to return and another is that Warners are unable to contact him because his boat has no wireless. However, the studio says he is expected to put in at Bahamas tomorrow where Warners will have a telephone line held open to tell him to fly home. The studio has shot around him just as long as they can and there’s still another rumor that if he isn’t reached, they’ll start casting about for another hero.
***
Would it be Warners’ own Dick Powell?
Or perhaps MGM’s Melvyn Douglas?
Or would they pick someone whose name sounded more like Errol Flynn’s?
— Tim
June 13, 1935
Hollywood Citizen News
by Elizabeth Yeaman
Apropos of The Three Musketeers, and the quest for a dashing D’Artagnan, Warners are looking for a captain Blood to replace Robert Donat in the picture of that title. Captain Blood was Irish and had all the emotional verve typical of the Irish, so Warners hacve decided to test George Brent for this role. Errol Flynn, another Irishman under contract to Warners, probably would be tested also if he had been established with the film public, but since his name is unknown outside of Hollywood, he will not qualify. Dwight Franklin, a great authority on pirates, who has been working on technical aspects of Captain Blood, feels that Brent should qualify for the role.
***
It is possible that Leslie Howard will be the star of The Charge of the Light Brigade, which Warners are going to produce as a big special during the coming year. The story, written by Abe Jacoby, was suggested by the Tennyson poem, “Charge of the Light Brigade.” Action will center around the Crimean War and Florence Nightingale will be one of the principal characters.
_____________________
Before Blood, Before Flynn was in the Big Money:
— Tim
The Supreme Court cowardly rewards the greed-driven deceit of Ryan Murphy, FX, and all in the film industry who selfishly perpetuate such conduct.
Bravo, Olivia, for standing up against and exposing these self-serving frauds.
In the words of Olivia’s superb attorney, Suzelle Smith.
“We and Miss de Havilland are very disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court passed on this opportunity to confirm that the 1st Amendment does not protect the publication of intentional lies in any medium, including so called docudramas,”
“The California Court of Appeal has turned the 1st Amendment upside down, and without doubt more harm to individuals and public deception will result. One day someone else who is wronged for the sake of Hollywood profits will have the courage to stand on the shoulders of Miss De Havilland and fight for the right to defend their good name and legacy against intentional, unconsented exploitation and falsehoods. Miss De Havilland hopes she will live to see the day when such justice is done.”
— Tim
