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Archive for November, 2018

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

 

For Better, Not for Worse

21 Nov

Third Week of November, 1936

LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
LOUELLA O. PARSONS

The Errol-Lili Damita marriage has gone on the rocks. For months rumors have been afloat in Hollywood that the matrimonial bark of Errol and Lili was having rough sailing, but to the outside world they denied there had been any serious troubles.

Yesterday, however, Errol was reported as having moved out of his Hollywood hilltop home and be staying with a writer friend, William Ullman, preparatory to moving into a fashionable apartment hotel. The final separation cane Saturday night when Lili followed her husband to a local cafe, where he was dining with a party of friends, and left shortly after in years.

Flynn’s much publicized trip to Borneo, the South Seas and England is definitely called off for the reason he will remain here and see the separation trouble through.

Neither Flynn nor Miss Damita would make any comment on their separation, but word of an impending divorce cane from a representative of the actor, who said that the court action would probably be filed by Miss Damita today or tomorrow.

— Tim

 

Not Errol’s Nottingham

21 Nov

EMPIRE

To be fair, when you’re dealing with something as culturally ingrained and cliché-ridden as Robin Hood you might as well go for something fresh, and go for broke. But for all its stylistic ambition, and its efforts to reference modern concerns (the Sheriff of Nottingham’s anti-Islamic invective), Robin Hood misfires thanks to a crucial absence of internal logic. This world just doesn’t work.”

NEW YORK TIMES

“The plot is twisty in a perfunctory way, the action predictably explosive, the sought-after exhilaration nonexistent.”

THE GUARDIAN

“This bloated, featureless, CGI-heavy movie is not so much stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, as stealing from Guy Ritchie, Batman, Two-Face and a few others – and not giving back all that much to the audience.”

LITTLE WHITE LIES

It’s a love story devoid of romance, an action flick severely lacking in spark and spectacle, a historical epic filled with flagrant inaccuracies and wrongheaded revisionism. There is nothing particularly fresh or inventive about the film, and, setting aside the wildly incongruous accents, jarringly modern, machine-stitched costumes and ugly CG render of a vaguely medieval setting, it is a simple fact that no one has ever looked cool shooting a bow and arrow while pirouetting backwards off a ledge.”

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“The action here is too phony and mechanically cranked up to believe that anything is on the line. Mendelsohn’s villain is boringly one-note, Eve Hewson’s Marion uses an incongruous Yank accent and always looks as though she’s just stepped out of the makeup trailer, F. Murray Abraham swans around in fancy cardinal’s vestments looking sinister and Foxx seems pissed off that he’s not somewhere, perhaps anywhere, else. As for Egerton, he’s a boy doing a man’s job.”

Ouch.

However, it’s not all terrible news as there are some positive reviews out there, such as in Variety who state it “shouldn’t work, but it’s more honest fun than the Kevin Costner or Russell Crowe versions”.

So there’s that, at least.

All reviews above are quoted in the Digital Spy link below:

www.digitalspy.com…

— Tim

 

Collect Call for Sherlock

21 Nov

“The only perfect screen version of me was the great Errol Flynn.”

“I’faith, there was a man who knew how to swashbuckle.”

— Robin Hood

i.pinimg.com…

www.dailypress.com…

— Tim

 

Meeting Deirdre

20 Nov

Fifteen years ago I hired Deirdre Flynn to appear at a Q&A before a showing of Warner Bros’ 1938 version of Robin Hood at Carmel’s Outdoor Forest Theater. I owned a national consumer products business and was forever looking for fun ways to promote the products. When someone approached us to sponsor a film at the Forest Theater, I agreed, providing, I cautioned, it was Robin Hood and providing they let Flynn’s daughter Deidre introduce the film after a Q&A on stage. They readily agreed, and after some doing, I managed to contact Deirdre through a Flynn website in Los Angeles. Nice guy ran it, forgotten his name.

About a month later she arrived in Carmel and it was a delight to meet her. She was soft spoken and friendly with no ego. It was apparent she’d had a hard life. We’d advertised the movie and the Q&A locally, and out of the woodwork appeared Deirdre’s former step sister, the daughter of Joanne Dru, whose father was Dick Haymes. I think we all got together for drinks first in town, and after a shy minute or two the women began to laugh and reminisce.

That night we got to the theater early and I spent some time with Deirdre talking about her dad. I asked whether he’d been a good dad, in her opinion. She said that he had, and that although she had nothing to compare it to, he seemed solicitous and concerned about her. According to Deirdre, from location Errol used to send her letters asking about her homework load, what she was reading, boyfriends. She said he’d sometimes add vocabulary words to the letters he sent, for her to look up and commit to memory. Well that’s something, I thought.

The whole affair of meeting Deirdre was bittersweet, because clearly Errol hand’t been the best father and it seemed sad that his beautiful daughter was drifting thru life as a consequence. The Q & A and movie were a huge hit, however. I remember two things. One, when the audience was told over the loudspeaker that before the film, there would be a Q&A with Errol Flynn’s daughter Deirdre Flynn, the audience actually gasped; they were that enthralled. Second, I was seated beside Deirdre and at the iconic moment in the film when Errol makes his appearance, leaping over the felled tree on his white stallion to the rousing Wolfgang Korngold score, the audience screamed and cheered, and I saw tears of pride and joy appear in Deidre’s eyes as she watched her father up there. I’ll never forget it.

One footnote. There was a raffle before the Q&A, and one lucky audience member received an autographed copy of Errol’s My Wicked Wicked Ways. For a lot of reasons not the least of which was that Flynn died when his book was still in galleys, they didn’t get an actual autographed first edition, but a 1984 paperback edition with an ersatz autograph. In my writing.

— TJR McDowell

 
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Flynn Fan Enamored of Blog. Hanging with Luke

18 Nov

Great blog. First class. Great esoterica.

I had occasion to work with Luke Stoecker (sp?) Flynn, Errol’s grandson, about nine years ago while directing my first film, The Mercy Man. I cast Luke in a small role as “the boyfriend.” He was a great guy. As handsome as Errol, and just a laid back fun guy. And a talented actor, because he was smart and listened well (to the other actors in the scene), and those two things are hallmarks of acting talent in my opinion. Every now and then between set ups or driving to the set with the cast, I’d talk to Luke about surfing and the West Indies (two interests of mine), and we’d get talking about Jamaica and his grandmother Patrice Wymore’s estate where he’d grown up, and of course Errol. Luke was well aware of his legacy and famous grandfather, but that was ancient history to Luke. He was smart enough to live in the present and not parade around as the grandson. I remember we were shooting a scene in a terrible part of Trenton New Jersey one night, which we were doubling for NYC, and we got lost in the car in an area where the cops told us not to go, and it was late at night and everyone in the car was unnerved and waiting to get shot to death, and Luke gazed about casually and said, “This is exciting. We should shoot here,” and I remember laughing at his blithe calmness. I wish him well. Acting’s a shitty business driven by luck and connections, so who knows.

— TJR McDowell

 
 

We Welcome new Author TJR McDowell to The Errol Flynn Blog!

17 Nov

I am happy to Welcome our new author, TJR McDowell to The Errol Flynn Blog! I am certain he has some great stories to tell us …

— David DeWitt

 

Mail Bag! Register on this Blog!

17 Nov

We got an email today saying our Registration process is a bit muddy! I think this is the result of different browsers at work, but let’s go over it:

Basically, it is a two step process:

Click on Register on the far right-hand corner of the blog, under Meta.

You will be presented with a WordPress Security Popup that asks you to input the temp username: errolflynn, with temp password efb.

Click Submit to got to the WordPress login page and enter your details.

You will receive an email confirming your registration.

After this, the popup will also appear whenever you log back in, and are sent to your normal login page!

Note: registering for the RSS Feed is not where you register to become a member of the blog, a common error …

— David DeWitt

 
 

8477 Sunset Boulevard — The Clover Club

17 Nov

The Amazing Clover Club

jhgraham-com.cdn.ampproject.org…

EVENING HERALD EXPRESS

by Jimmy Starr

Ahem! Bob Taylor was out-a-dancing with Ginger Rogers at the Clover Club!

And for one just separated from his wife, Errol Flynn seemed to be having wera JULLY times at the same spot…

— Tim

 

“A Clash of Temperament”

16 Nov

November 16, 1936

EVENING HERALD EXPRESS

Lili Damita, Errol Flynn Separated, Friends Report

Errol Flynn, star of Captain Blood and Charge of the Light Brigade , and his wife, glamorous Lili Damita of the files, have separated, friends said today.

Flynn is an outdoor man, while Lili likes to dance and attend the numerous affairs of the smart film set, said intimates of the couple, who explained that it was a clash of temperament and that no other persons were involved.

Flynn plans to leave for Europe in about a week and indications are that Miss Damita will then seek a divorce.

— Tim