September 1, 1938 – 12:30 Matinee
“The cream and black tiles glistened and the neon sign spelled out its welcome. The new Lafayette Theater, with its modern Art Deco design, was opening! The line stretched down the block as people waited to see Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in “Fours A Crowd.”
— Tim
Late on the evening of August 31, 1946, Zaca arrived in Acapulco. Though Carl Hubbs diligently pressed on with his scientific explorations, he did so predominantly on his own. The scientific purpose and portion of the Cruise of the Zaca was almost entirely abandoned for the sun and fun of Acapulco.
Here’s what Acapulco looked like in 1946:
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— Tim
In the last week of August many years ago. there was a mutiny on a ship that has a very strong connection to the history of Errol Flynn.
What ship was it, where was it, and who led the mutiny???
— Tim
August 25, 1935
Los Angeles Times
By Muriel Babcock
Adventure again is holding the stage. The cutthroats and brigands and brave seamen of Raphael Sabatini’s swashbuckling tale of the Seventeenth Century, Captain Blood, are coming to life on the Warner Brothers set in Burbank, California, in this year, 1935.
One of the most interesting sets I have seen in visits to many studios, is the great, sprawling layout if a Jamaican slave plantation of the Captain BloodCaptain Blood, as you know, is the story which gives Errol Flynn, the Irish adventurer, his big chance in pictures. Chatting with him idly between scenes, I discovered that while his adventures in Captain Blood are thrilling, he has had almost as exciting ones in his own life before he came to America. He has a terrific scar on his left leg from an arrow shot at him by African natives.
LIFE’S BIGGEST SCARE
He was lost in the African jungles, and for two days, while hunted by the incessant tom-tom of drums, he hid from the natives and tried to make his way to safety. “Never in my life have I been so frightened” he told me.
But more about these interesting sets of Captain Blood. On still another stage are two huge replicas of galleons of that day, on of the Arabella, a Spanish ship, the other the Diligent, a French pirates’ boat. They are a beautiful sight to come upon, and it takes you a moment to realize they are only half ships that move back and forth on pulleys across the stage against the painted canvas sea background, instead of sailing the Caribbean as they did in Captain Blood. I climbed up on one, and I assure you it gives you a thrilling feeling.
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The Jamaican Plantation*
*Imagery from the superb “Blonde at the Film” review of “Captain Blood 1935”
— Tim
August 17, 2019 – Posted by Paula for TCM’s Summer Under the Stars
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First there was the book, based on Evelyn Waugh’s tour of Forest Lawn, where Errol was buried against his will! Here’s a plot summary:
“When Evelyn Waugh came to Hollywood in 1947 to discuss the film rights for Brideshead Revisited, he visited a graveyard: Forest Lawn Memorial Park. He had heard it praised as a place unsurpassed in beauty, taste, and sensitivity; a place where “faith and consolation, religion and art had been brought to their highest possible association.” But Mr. Waugh found the cemetery dripping with saccharine sentimentality, edged with macabre memorials, and repellent with cuteness. (Walt Disney’s remains, along with those of myriad other celebrities, are enshrined there.) Mr. Waugh found in that “theme-park necropolis” a grotesque denial of the reality of death, the opposite extreme of Donne’s holy sonnet. He found vulgar euphemisms marketed and crafted by entrepreneurial racketeers. He found, in the end, wonderful material for a story to satirize the bizarre American funeral-home industry.”
“… The Loved One, is a pitiless satire on the shallowness and pretensions of British expatriates and Americans in post-World War II Los Angeles. The action is set principally in two funeral parlors, one for humans and the other for pets. Most of the characters either work in one of the funeral homes or are employed by a Hollywood film studio. Waugh portrays the Los Angeles denizens as part of a culture that fosters and encourages the selfish pursuit of petty goals. In the book, almost everyone is striving to gain or maintain a place in society that they seem to believe is important because other people might envy them for it. The principal character, a young Englishman named Dennis Barlow, is a poet-cum-screenwriter who leaves his job at the studio, which he hates for its bureaucracy and lack of imagination. He takes a job at a pet cemetery, scandalizing his fellow Englishmen in Hollywood, particularly an actor named Sir Ambrose Abercrombie, who believes the expatriate British have a reputation and an image to uphold. When an old screenwriter and fellow Brit named Sir Francis Hinsley is fired from the film studio and commits suicide, Sir Ambrose enlists Dennis to take care of funeral arrangements. At a well-known funeral home called Whispering Glades (Forest Lawn) Dennis meets a young woman named Aimée Thanatogenos, who is a cosmetician in the embalming rooms. Aimée, a thoroughgoing product of Los Angeles, is empty-headed yet yearns for higher things, although she cannot really say what this means to her. Dennis becomes enamored of her. A rival for Aimée’s affections is Mr. Joyboy, the chief embalmer at Whispering Glades, who is widely considered to be a stylish and cultivated man, although he actually is a rather perverse momma’s boy.”
Then there was the movie in ’65, even more out there than the book I’d say:
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The book also inspired Tom Paxton to sing the satirical Sixties song “Forest Lawn”:
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— Tim
August 11, 1936
Louela O. Parsons
Los Angeles Times
Sally Eilers is the most thrilled girl in Hollywood over winning the women’s doubles title with Josephine Cruikshank in the West Side Tennis Club’s first annual tournament; club members, headed by Errol Flynn, Frank Shields and Michael Bartlett, campaigning for less eccentric court attire. We’re with them 100 percent as long as they don’t bar Nigel “Willie” Bruce’s battered felt hat and John Cromwell’s pipe.
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Here’s sexy silent and early talkies star, Sally Eilers. Her first husband was Hoot Gibson , who can be seen having a hoot in this Dodge City Premier photo featuring Errol. Her second husband was Harry Joe Brown, who produced both Captain Blood and Son of Captain Blood. In fact, Harry Joe Brown may have been the prime person responsible for Jack Warner’s selection of Errol as Captain Blood.
And here is the 1934 U. S. Tennis Team – Caroline Babcock, Alice Marble, Josephine Cruikshank, and Sarah Palfrey – as they boarded the steamship Bremen to return to the U.S. after defeating the United Kingdom team at Wimbledon. Josephine Cruikshank is third from the left. Alice Marble, another tennis friend of Errol’s (who won 18 Grand Slam Championships!) is second from the left.
Josephine Cruikshank a regular at the Los Angeles Tennis Club where the Pacific Southwest Championships as well as the Motion Picture tournaments were played. Other players at the club included Mickey Rooney, Rudy Vallee, Ozzie Nelson, Sam Yorty and Bing Crosby. Errol asked Josephine to be his partner in the Motion Picture championship final in 1937.
— Tim
August 9, 1937
Film Flam with Sidney Skolsky
Errol Flynn, while on a boat returning from Spain, was stopped on the deck by a Frenchman who was carrying a camera. The Frenchman said: “Picture. Picture.” Flynn stopped, stood against the rail and posed.
The Frenchman said: “No. No. You Take picture of me.”
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C’est La Vie!
— Tim
