“Cruising Down Mexico Way” with Errol Flynn and Howard Hill
— Tim
Archive for February, 2017
Swordfishing on the Sirocco
10
Feb
Featuring Howard Hill and Ronald Reagan
“Swordfishing is not for the timid. This magnificent creature that lives 30 years
and can reach 1,200 lbs at 14 feet long lurks in the deep waters of the Gulf Stream
offering lucky anglers a brutal fight and trophy size fish. And they are excellent eating.
Once hooked this aggressive Billfish are known to shoot straight out of the water from
a depth of 500 feet in an instant then dive straight back down to the same depth offering
one of the most exciting catches of your life. The Swordfish is one of the fastest swimmers
— 60 mph sprints are very common.”
— Tim
The perfect Flynn Girl?
08
Feb
I sometimes make mental lists of which actresses I would have liked to have seen play opposite Errol, and at the top is Eleanor Parker. The Canadian Parker was a classical, almost aristocratic beauty, given spice by her incredible slanted eyes, the colour of Anatolian waters, and her tumbling hair that reminds one of a winter sunset. She could dance, fight, play a queen or a serving wench with equal aplomb, was a fine comedienne and with her curves like the hull of the Zaca, looked sensational in a period costume, even when it bordered on the camp.
She starred in only one swashbuckler, a film we have been discussing – Scaramouche – as the fiery on-off love interest of Stewart Granger. Able as Granger was in this picture (and in my view it was his best; with the exceptional six minute fencing match), he was a bit of a one-note as an actor and never quite did it for me in the boudoir department. How I wish it had been Errol sparring with Eleanor in glorious technicolour and exaggerated 18th Century costumes.
Eleanor Parker in Scaramouche
As a performer, Parker was streets ahead of 50s bombshells like Ava Gardner and Janet Leigh. A very distinguished actress, Parker was Oscar nominated more than once. She should have won for Interrupted Melody (1955), in which she played the crippled soprano Marjorie Lawrence, opposite Glenn Ford and a young Roger Moore.
Interrupted Melody
It is the best operatic biopic ever made, in my view (aside from The Great Caruso), and she gives a stellar and harrowing performance. See it if you can. I think it is on DVD.
Eleanor as Isolde
Parker also played Kirk Douglas’s troubled wife in Detective Story, a mid-50s noir – sadly, it was more grey than noir. She was also put in a second-rate Egyptian ‘adventure’, with an ageing Robert Taylor, called Valley Of the Kings (how very original.)
Had Eleanor been born ten years earlier she would have been a major star, but the more simplistic, epics with a moral, family-orientated Hollywood of the 1950s didn’t really know what to do with her.
It’s a shame that she is chiefly remembered now for playing the Baroness in The Sound of Music.
As the Baroness, with Christopher Plummer
What a gorgeous pair she and Errol would have made….
— PW
In should`ve been Flynn 12
08
Feb
Dear fellow Flynn fans,
now this may seem like stating the obvious. Movie history hush hush has it that Errol turned down the leopard hatband of Allan Quatermain in “King Solomon`s Mines” for Muhbub Ali`s turban in Kipling`s “Kim”. Always the traveller he opted to rub noses with the Maharajahs in India instead of striking poses with the Masai in Kenia. But there’s another side south of this story.
Now director Compton Bennett had wanted Flynn in the main role right from the start. They had done “That Forsyte Woman” together and had gotten along just dandy. But producer Sam Zimbalist overruled Bennett and pitched Britimport Stewart Granger, who had just signed a seven film contract with MGM. Granger got meager $25.000 for his first appearance, but was eager to prove his stock value. He had divorced his first wife Elspeth March, an old EF acquaintance (see:www.theerrolflynnblog.com…) only recently and had to make good and money on his highly hyped star potential.
Even though suffering from draining dysentery, the “new Errol Flynn” went big game hunting shooting amongst others two rhinos.
Co Star Deborah Kerr tended to him once he took one in the ribs, when pumping lead into a charging buffalo didn’t show an immediate effect on the raging animal.
The MGM film was every bit the success that Kim wasn’t and provided the gritty Brit with another Flynntasy film role: Scaramouche!
Here is the originale “Mines”- movie with Flynn buddy John Loder aka Mr. Hedy Lamarr.
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
Has Any Seen?
07
Feb
Hello fellow EF Bloggers – Have you all seen (LINK) – I don’t know much about it other than what I read on its site, so I decided to throw it out to the blog and see what they knew… Thx Sergio
— Sergio
SUPER-DUPER
05
Feb
Did Errol ever get credited with being in a movie involving (American) Football?
— Tim
The real inspiration for Bond?
05
Feb
As we have been Bonding – as it were – I thought I would pose a quiz question.
Although Errol embodied Bond is so many ways, Fleming, sadly, did not seem to make that connection. This was probably because he was too myopic and snobbish. In fact, he was a social mountaineer; the Edmund Hillary of social climbers.
So my question is, what is the name of the man Fleming most admired and wanted to be (and that includes physically)?
In public, Fleming often gave contradictory answers when asked upon whom he had modelled James Bond. In private, however, he frequently named my ‘mystery man’ (pictured below). I know this is true because Fleming used to stay with my father in Wiltshire, and the ‘mystery man’s’ late wife was my Godmother.
Coincidentally, he bore a striking resemblance to Errol, and the two actually met at a dinner party in Italy.
Mystery Man
Errol
Clue 1: My ‘mystery man’ wasn’t a member of the Intelligence Services, a Government official, a writer, an ornithologist, an actor or any of the people usually mentioned. Fleming first met him in 1951 and later attended his wedding (below). (Interestingly, his wife, according to one of Fleming’s letters, was ‘my ideal of what a girl should look like, and how she should act’, which qualifies her for the distaff side of all the Bond novels published after 1955.)
Clue 2: In ‘From Russia With Love’, Fleming pays tribute to my ‘mystery man’ and his wife. When Bond and Tatiana have to flee from SMERSH, they are given false names. The names Fleming chose were their names.
Clue 3: A well-known sport was named after the ‘mystery man’s’ house.
Clue 4: The man is still living and has been called ‘the handsomest …. in England.’
So, what is his name?
My ‘mystery man’ outside his family house, and at the horse trials
— PW
Lock, stock and Errol
05
Feb
Dear fellow Flynn fans,
I want to invite you to join me at my currently created FB site LOCK, STOCK and ERROL.
It shows something aulde, something new and “everything you forever wanted to know about Hollywood`s golden bad boy”.
Basically it is my Flynn home away from home- the blog.
G` Sunday mates,
— shangheinz
Arrow Flynn
03
Feb
Dear fellow Flynn fans,
Stan Lee`s adoration of our Hollywood hero has been more than once the topic here on the blog. See: www.theerrolflynnblog.com…
But also Marvel rival DC Comics came up with a character resembling Errol and upped the ante with incorporating some fine Flynn storyline into the birth of superhero The Green Arrow.
Billionaire businessman Oliver “Ollie” Reed fights crime in the streets of his hometown Star City. Dressed like Sir Locksley, he is a marksman with bow and an array of arrows.
Now here Errol Flynn kicks in. The bow is regaled to Reed by none other than Howard Hill, who says it`s the original one he used for the film “The Adventures of Robin Hood”.
When illustrator Neal Adams did a makeover of Green Arrow in the Sixties, the archer looked more errolesque than ever.
A sure hit- can`t miss concept if you ask me.
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
