What happened here? / Who’s that lady?
— Tim
Author Archive
All Avenidas Led to Caesar’s
24
Oct
Live from Caesar’s, photos for the EFB.
Chaplin, Barrymore, Arbuckle, Keaton, Capone, Hayworth and Flynn, they all came here. A top hot spot for Hollywood luminaries during Prohibition, and, again, during the U.S. gambling ban of WW II.
See if you can see Mickey Rooney and Joe DiMaggio in the photos below.
— Tim
Miller Time with Flynn
21
Oct
From American Cinematographer
The Sea Hawk Meets the Six Pack
Hardesty, Mary, American Cinematographer
Miller spot uses classic footage from Flynn adventure to set up clever pitch for product.
Did you ever notice the monkey in the galley scene from the classic film The Sea Hawk starring Errol Flynn? Maybe not, but Miller Beer has cleverly brought him to the foreground with their new Miller Genuine Draft Beer 30-second takeoff. This time the monkey appears monkey appears at one of the portholes and drops a bottle which rolls to one of the rowing men.
“The knife the forced laborers use to extricate themselves and escape [in the film] is now a bottle of beer,” explains cinematographer Curtis Clark, ASC, who collaborated on the ad with first-time director Angus Wall. “The challenge was to link Errol Flynn and the original actors with our new guy. Instead of the knife, he’s handed the bottle of beer.”
To make it appear as if Flynn was actually handed a brew, Clark used motion control and a bottle on a rig to match the actions needed to composite the bottle into the late actor’s hand.
Light, angles and perspective proved to be the biggest worries during the five-day shoot at Renmar Studios in Los Angeles, on a set constructed to match the 1940s set. “We had the original footage with us during the entire shoot, so we were able to estimate the perspective needed,” Clark recalls. Although he didn’t have access to continuity reports of the original footage, he was able to make use of video assist to help him match footage. “We would feed in the original scene and superimpose our bottle over the point where Flynn’s hand was, which allowed us to quickly see if the bottle was at the correct perspective,” explains Clark, who was given one day to shoot two such scenes.
To capture the original Forties look, Clark chose Kodak Double X black & white stock. “We took the closest source of the film – in this case a D-1 transfer from Turner Broadcasting’s library –
and used it on the Cineon at Pacific Ocean Post to replicate the look of the original film grain, which was coarser than today’s stock,” explains Clark. “Because we didn’t know the exact steps the filmmakers went through to create the original footage, we had to guess the grain sharpness and diffusion levels.”
To further add to the authentic period feel, Clark and the director decided to recreate the shooting style of the period using the same lighting techniques and lenses.
Fortunately, Clark had found a set of old Cooke lenses that had been rehoused when he was shooting the King Kong Eveready Battery spot [AC March ’94], so he was able to use that gained knowledge to save time and accomplish his lighting tests in only one day.
“From my work on the King Kong spot I knew we needed to use tungsten lighting and traditional studio lamps. The lighting styles used in those days were, in many respects, old-fashioned,” observes Clark, who notes that many older features lack lighting continuity. “They’re not anything like what we would do today. The trick is to always refer back to the reality of the original film and not do what you would normally do to improve the lighting. Making it nicer is not the point: you want to
capture the original Forties look, Clark chose Kodak Double X black & white stock. “We took the closest source of the film – in this case a D-1 transfer from Turner Broadcasting’s library . We had to guess the grain sharpness and diffusion levels [the original filmmakers used.]”
To further add to the authentic period feel, Clark and the director decided to recreate the shooting style of the period using the same lighting techniques and lenses. Fortunately, Clark had found a set of old Cooke lenses that had been rehoused when he was shooting the King Kong Eveready Battery spot.
Publication information: Article title: The Sea Hawk Meets the Six-Pack. Contributors: Hardesty, Mary – Author. Magazine title: American Cinematographer. Volume: 76. Issue: 5 Publication date: May 1995. Page number: 81+. © American Society of Cinematographers.
Is there anyone out there who knows where to find a copy of the Sea Hawk Miller commercial? I’m sure we all would love to see it posted! Thanks.
Here’s the scene stealing Sea Hawk monkey stealing a separate scen from Sea Hawk:
— Tim
Live from the Cafe LaMaze
19
Oct
Hangout of Hollywood megastars travelling to and fro Old Tijuana:
Note images of Veronica Lake, Clark Gable and Lana Turner on the southern wall:
The former secret upstairs casino:
From the official website, here’s interior shot of the current day restaurant, with a commanding image of Flynn:
— Tim
Live from Lovely Rita’s
17
Oct
In Celebration of Rita Hayworth’s 98th Birthday
Live from Lovely Rita’s home in Chula Vista, California, where she lived as a young teen, working across the border in Golden Age Tijuana, only fifteen or so minutes away. Rita performed at Hollywood honcho hangouts like the Hotel (Agua) Caliente and the Foreign Club Cafe de Luxe, where she began her entertainment career dancing with her father in The (Dancing) Cansinos.
In a photo taken this weekend for the EFB, here is Margarita’s former childhood home, a fact her present day neighbors were thrilled to learn.
And here are photos from that era of her early career, when she was Margarita Cansino.
As a young teen, Rita danced at the following famous Hollywood-popular venues in Tijuana, where it is said she was discovered..
¡Adios, Flynnamigos!
— Tim
Your Call: Most Handsome Man in The Colony
16
Oct
The most handsome man ever. Errol Flynn?
… Or was it Brooke’s father, and Errol’s former tennis friend, Frank Shields?
Two opinions found in this definitive article on New York’s premier high society haunt. I vote with the Lebanese doorman’s wife. How about you?
— Tim
BATTERS UP!
14
Oct
A DOUBLE HEADER QUIZ
FIRST PITCH – Right Down the Middle
With the summer season of Cricket beginning Down Under, who was “The Errol Flynn of Cricket”?
SECOND PITCH – A Screw Ball
What film did both Errol and Lili appear in?
This being a Hall of Fame-level pitch, I provide the following batting tips
(not that they’ll likely help much – this a very, very tough one!):
> It was produced by Howard Hughes.
> Paulette Goddard co-starred.
> E.F.Hutton was involved.
> It was filmed entirely outside California.
— Tim
A Chiki Hi from Chiki Jai
13
Oct
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!
— Tim
“That Man! That Man!”
10
Oct
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!
— Tim
