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August 13, 1936
Harrison Carrol
LA Evening Herald Express
Adventure is calling again to Errol Flynn.
Instead of sailing to Europe in a de luxe suite as other movie stars do on vacation, the young Irish actor is headed for the wilds of Borneo, where he and a friend will photograph background shots of The White Rajah, Flynn’s own story, in which he will star for Warner Brothers.
The unusual holiday will begin as soon as he finishes one more picture declared the actor yesterday, and will take him away from Hollywood for a period of three months.
As the expedition will penetrate into uncivilized country, the star’s wife, Lili Damita, will not accompany him.
His partner in adventure will be Dr. Hermann Erben, with whom Flynn once sailed up a savage infested river in New Guinea. At that time the thought of Hollywood never enter the actor’s mind. He was the owner of a pearling schooner that Dr. Erben chartered for the expedition.
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August 17, 1936
Harrison Carrol
LA Evening Herald Express
Errol Flynn calls up to say he still has not given up hope of persuading Lili Damita to brave the wilds of Borneo with him.
— Tim
rswilltell
August 19, 2019 at 6:48 pm
Tim; This is fascinating material. About 25 years ago, I was passed the name of a movie memorabilia shop in London. I was told the proprietor had the original manuscript for Errol Flynn’s screenplay “White Rajah”. I wrote the shop and the owner wrote back that he would sell it for five thousand. He included his phone number and I called him long distance from Chicago. First off he said he wanted not $5000 in U.S. currency but five thousand pounds British sterling! This was way beyond my meager budget. He did describe it as a story treatment and not a shooting screenplay which is verified thanks to Tim. My question is who has the script? Enlighten us Tim!!! Thanks Ralph Schiller
Gentleman Tim
August 20, 2019 at 2:44 am
All credit for the images go to Eric Clarke, Ralph. Regrettably, I have no info whether or not there are any further records available, either publicly or privately. Perhaps Eric will come forth with more.
It’s been said that The White Rajah has been the most doomed Hollywood production of all time. …And the plot has now gotten even thicker, and trickier, to film.
www.thestar.com…
rswilltell
August 20, 2019 at 2:40 pm
Tim; The article you provided from the Star is absolutely fascinating. I am surprised that Warner Bros. just didn’t change the names of the characters and country and go ahead and make another swashbuckling classic! I agree with the writer tat the film will never get made but for different reasons. Actually there are two great films here, one on James and the other on Charles but today’s audiences prefer comic book heroes. Perhaps one of the streaming services will do it as a mini-series. Thanks Tim!! Ralph Schiller