the 14th of october 2016 marks the 950th anniversary of the bloody Battle of Hastings.
When Edward the Confessor died without a successor in early 1066, three other noble horsemen claimed the throne of England.
At first Harald Goodwinson proclaimed himself Harald II. His brother Tostig challenged him instantly for the crown with the help of a Norwegian army (the Danes and Norwegians had held larg parts of the British Isle since the 9th century). Harald II. preveiled in the Battle at Stamford Bridge on the 25h September.
Meanwhile William the Conqueror entered the South of England from Normandy. Harald II. marched his weary men all the way down from the North and erected a wall on a knoll, which at first held firm against the furious attacks from the Normans. They were fighting the proverbial uphill battle. When TC William seemed to retreat, the Anglo Saxons left their forification to deliver the death blow. But the Normans suddenly turned and responded with a surprising onslaught. 7000 was the final deathcount at a time when towns averaged 2500 people.
Harald II. got ambushed and lost life, kingdom and ocular globe on the spot. The historic scene is depicted on a famous tapestry, showing him being hit by an arrow into the eye.
Wicked Will became King William I. on Christmas day of that year and abolished landownership immediately. His Normans` Earls and Counts were lent the lands seized from the Saxon aristocracy.
Hola from Becki on our right and Anita on our left!!
From an old South of the Border haunt of Hemingway, Gardner, Hayworth and Flynn.
Famous for paella and its old Hollywood, bullfight and jai lai crowds, the food remains sensational. Being there before paella time, I had the calamari steak, which was muy, muy, muy sabroso – the best I ever had.
Becki and Anita are fantastic and couldn’t believe how handsome Flynn was and how beautiful Ava was during their Chiki Jai heydays.
Becki, by the way, says she’s ready to go Hollywood herself, Hollywood agents out there. With looks and a personality reminiscent of Linda Christian, I highly recommend her!
Having recently landed at Lindberg Field in San Diego and headed into Mexico today, I thought I’d publish these protoflynnical, Lindberg Field and Mexico-related Hollywood news reports from March 24, 1939:
Los Angeles Evening Herald Express – Jimmy Starr:
Errol (pronounced Errant) Flynn, Hollywood’s “Peck’s Bad Boy” grown up, and his wife,the lovely Lili Damita, were finally lured from their vacation in Mazatlan, Mexico, by the Warner Studio, which demanded his return for picture work.
An effort to reach the film plant on time nearly cost them their lives. Chartering a plane, with Ted Brown as pilot, in Mazatlan, the trio battled heavy fog for most of the way to San Diego.
More thrilling than a horror movie, they were lost somewhere over San Diego. Their gas was low. They had lost their radion beam. With but two minutes of gas time in the tank, Brown took a chance, started to pancake the ship earthward. He caught his radio beams. Luckily, he was over the field!
“We owe our lives to Brown’s remarkable ‘deadstick’ landing,” said Errol, who, with Lili, was still somewhat jittery over the experience.
Lili and Errol arrived in Hollywood yesterday morning.
___________
Los Angeles Evening Herald Express – Harrison Carroll
Even Lili Damita, who is on the impulsive side herself,was amazed at Errol Flynn’s first official act on returning to California. The Irish star climbed out of a chartered plane, in which he and Lili had flown from Mazatlan, and immediately his eyes fell upon another ship standing on the field.
“That’s a slick job. I’d like to take it up myself,” said the star.
“Go ahead,” said one of the spectators, “it belongs to me.”
So Flynn, whose feet had been on solid ground for less than ten minutes, hopped into the plane alone and took it aloft.
Lili, left standing there, could only shake her head and mutter: “That man! That man!”
btw, in researching this post, I discovered evidence that indicates the pilot who saved Errol & Lili’s lives in San Diego may have been the father of the highly respected tenor saxophonist Ted Brown. Here he is playing “On a Lost Plane to Lindberg” – I mean “On a Slow Boat to China” with jazz legend Art Pepper:
As always with these historic newspaper article posts, all thanks ans praise goes to Flynn Meister Karl Holmberg! Muchos gracias, Mi Amigo!
Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall’s novel was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post (28 December 1935-1 February 1936). A December 5, 1935 Hollywood Reporter news item reported that producer Samuel Goldwyn purchased the film rights to their novel for $60,000, and various news items in the spring of 1936 noted that he originally intended to produce the film in Technicolor, but was prevented from doing so because of the cost involved. The film’s pressbook stated that Goldwyn had hoped to shoot the entire picture on location in the South Seas, but the expense and difficulty of transporting the equipment, combined with the possible adverse weather conditions, necessitated that the picture be shot in Hollywood. A great deal of background footage was shot in the village of Pago Pago, on the Tutuila Island in American Samoa, however, where the camera crew received the cooperation of the U.S. Navy. A November 22, 1937 Life article reported that the location crew shot “140,000 feet of scenic shots in Samoa, enough to make 14 movies.” Among those who went to the South Seas for location scouting in the winter of 1936 and filming during the following spring were: director John Ford, associate director Stuart Heisler, unit location manager Percy Ikerd, art director Richard Day, photographers Archie Stout and Paul Eagler and an eighteen-member technical crew. Although a November 1, 1936 New York Times news item stated that Gregg Toland would be leaving in a week to film exteriors in Samoa, his participation in the completed film has not been confirmed.
Among the actresses listed by contemporary sources as being considered for the role of “Marama” were Merle Oberon and Movita Castenada, the latter of whom appeared in the picture as “Arai.” According to Hollywood Reporter news items, Goldwyn first signed Margo for the part of Marama, then borrowed Dorothy Lamour from Paramount after Margo asked to be relieved of the role. “Moon of Manakoora” became Lamour’s signature song, and the role of Marama helped establish her career identification with a sarong, which was begun with the 1936 film Jungle Princess. A Hollywood Reporter news item reported that Charita Alden was being tested for an uspecified role, and a Hollywood Reporter production chart includes Barbara O’Neil in the cast, but their participation in the completed film has not been confirmed. Basil Rathbone was originally considered for the part of “Eugene DeLaage,” which, according to a September 25, 1938 New York Times article, he turned down. Photographer Bert Glennon and actor C. Aubrey Smith were borrowed from Selznick International for this production.
A November 19, 1936 Hollywood Reporter news item reported that Goldwyn would star Mala as “Terangi” if Errol Flynn were unavailable for the part, while a November 21, 1936 Film Daily news item stated that Goldwyn contract players John Payne and Frank Shields were being tested for the role. In early February 1937, Goldwyn announced that Joel McCrea would be playing “Terangi,” although by late Mar, he was removed from the cast and placed into another Goldwyn film, Dead End. After much publicity announcing that he was looking for and casting an “unknown” as “Terangi,” Goldwyn finally revealed that he had placed Jon Hall in the role. Although Goldwyn’s publicity, contemporary news items and reviews variously asserted that Hall was an “unknown,” a “newcomer,” or that he had “never appeared in a picture” before, Hall had made numerous films in the mid-1930s under the names Charles Locher and Lloyd Crane. Contemporary and modern sources variously state that Hall was the cousin, second cousin or nephew of author James Norman Hall, and that he was a next-door neighbor of Ford, all of which contributed to his being cast as “Terangi.” Hall, who was born in Fresno, CA, was reared in Tahiti, although some sources incorrectly state that he was born in Tahiti as well.
According to Hollywood Reporter news items, William Wyler directed tests of the actors while Ford was finishing direction on Wee Willie Winkie at Fox, and location shooting was also done on Santa Catalina Island, CA. A March 24, 1937 Hollywood Reporter news item announced that Goldwyn was going to produce a 1,000 foot short about the filming of The Hurricane in Samoa. The news item stated: “The short titled ‘Samoa for the Samoans’ will be released to theatres in advance of the feature’s distribution and will show the manner in which a picture company works on location.” No other information about the short has been found. Although Frank Loesser and Alfred Newman’s song is entitled “Moon of Manakoora,” contemporary sources refer to the island on which the film’s action takes place as “Manukura.”
The widely praised hurricane sequence was created by special effects expert James Basevi and his assistant, Robert Layton. Basevi and Layton, who had been with M-G-M for fourteen years, left the studio in September 1936 after creating the earthquake special effects for San Francisco (see below). According to Life, Goldwyn gave Basevi a budget of $400,000 to achieve his effects, and “of this amount, $150,000 was spent to build a native village, fronted by a lagoon 200 yards long. The other $250,000 was spent in destroying it.” A pressbook for the film notes that the native village set occupied two-and-a-half acres of the United Artists studio backlot. With the aid of numerous twelve-cylinder Liberty motor wind machines, large wave machines, firehoses and an elaborate system of pipes, chutes and holding tanks, thousands of gallons of water were sent crashing down onto the sets to create the winds of the hurricane and the subsequent tidal waves. Contemporary sources note that doubles were not used for the actors during the storm sequences, and as an article in New York Times related: “Dorothy Lamour and Mary Astor were really lashed to that tree and buffeted about like chips.” According to another New York Times article, the rigors of shooting resulted in Hall losing thirty pounds by the time the picture was completed. In her autobiography, Astor describes the shooting: “Huge propellers kept us fighting for every step, with sand and water whipping our faces, sometimes leaving little pinpricks of blood on our cheeks from the stinging sand.”
According to a remark by Goldwyn printed in a New York Times article, the film cost $2,000,00 to produce. The article relates that Goldwyn spent another $35,000 on the picture’s premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. The film was named one of ten best pictures of 1938 by the Film Daily annual critics poll, and a modern source notes that it was “one of United Artists’ most successful releases in years.” Thomas Mitchell was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and Alfred Newman was nominated for Best Score. The Hurricane won an Academy Award for Best Sound Recording. Information in the MPAA/PCA Collection at the AMPAS Library reveals that the picture was the object of much criticism by the French government. French officials in Washington, D.C. demanded cuts of the scenes in which prisoners were flogged and tortured by French guards. The eliminations were made, but the film still encountered difficulty in Paris, where censors refused to pass a dubbed version. According to a letter from Harold L. Smith, who apparently was a PCA foreign staff member, “there was a unanimous decision of the censors not to pass the film for two reasons: first, the original version was considered anti-French in accord with reports received from the French Embassy in Washington and second, the local office of United Artists presented to the censors a revised version of the film whereas the regulations require that the original version be presented.” Correspondence in the file indicates that the French representative of United Artists was fearful that the original verison would not pass and so instead submitted a revised version. The correspondence does not specifically state which version was exhibited in Paris, but apparently the censors did agree to review both the original and dubbed versions.
According to modern sources, Goldwyn originally wanted Howard Hawks to direct the picture, for which Ben Hecht was hired to do an uncredited rewrite just before going into production. A 1974 New York Times news item noted that Paul Stader was Hall’s stuntman for a jump off a cliff. The picture was remade in 1979 as Hurricane, which was produced by Dino De Laurentiis, directed by January Troell and starred Jason Robards, Mia Farrow and Dayton Ka’ne. According to a 1978 New York Times article, De Laurentiis “reportedly paid $500,000 for the rights to the original film.” The remake, which was filmed on location in Bora Bora, cost eleven times more to produce than the original. The Variety review of the later film incorrectly states that Glen Robinson created the hurricane special effects for the 1937 picture.
I am sure many of us use several sources to confirm the movie premiere dates for Flynn’s films. One of the largest, and generally reliable, is is IMDb. But it is always good to double check.
As an example I checked the date for The Sea Hawk with IMDb and it is listed as July 1, 1940 with asecond listing of August 10 in New York City. Wellll, that’s not quite right.
After filming was completed on April 19, 1940 there was no release date set. On July 4th there was a special sneak preview of the film in Pomona, Cal. and still no release date set. On July 17 there is an all day preview of the film at Warner’s Hollywood theatre with guests anD reporters and a tentative premiere date was announced to be the Labor day wekend, but not printed.Read the rest of this entry »
I came acoss a curious statement in the obituary (www.smh.com…) of nazitorious biographer Charles Higham.
“Higham had a delight in the macabre and the absurd, exemplified by his invitation to the English widow of Hermann Erben for dinner in Los Angeles with a Flynn double, Chuck Pilleau. Higham coaxed from her a bizarre revelation: SS agent Erben was circumcised.”
Now more interesting than Dr. Erben`s anatomy is that another little known stuntman, stand- in or stooge of Errol is brought into play, a certain Charles Pilleau.
I found an entry on this virtually unrecorde go- to gent, posted by a friend of his, a one time actor and passionate golfer:
“All I know is that I found a picture on the web of a suppossedly Errol swinging a golf club. And it was a lefty swing? I wish I knew how to post it here. I was given an old “Brassie, driver” by my old friend that I used to rent an apartment from in Hollywierd in the early 80’s ( N Franklin & Hollywood Blvd ). I was studying acting, rasing hell around town and just enjoying my youth (srtaight). His name was Chuck “Sir Charles Pilleau”. What a charachter and friend. He was long in the tooth with some great stories. He took a liking to me cause I’m a Texas boy. I as well enjoyed his company as I used to help him around town to get his tasks done since he only had one eye and a lung left. Don’t feel sorry. I saw some of the gals that old Chuck had over from time to time. He had the charm. Another of our friends eventually aided old Chuck in finding his way back to Australia where I heard he passed a few years later. I know that he was FLynns buddy cause he had all the pictures hangin on the walls and the stories were abundant and in line with everything that I had heard about Flynn. Except there were no gay stories from Chuck. The gay stories according to him were an attempt to ruin him. I believe my friend Chuck Pilleau………Still Puzzled About This Old Brassie Driver……….Was Errol right handed or not? I haven’t answered it yet. Pardon…..distracted with memmories of my pal Chuck. He seemed almost “life like” to Errols immage and mannerisims…..John Horton el************@ao*.com. ”
Unfortunately when I tried to contact Mr. Horton to putt him the photo pictured above as answer to his question, I came across another obituary: dfw.cbslocal.com…
