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Archive for the ‘Behind the Scenes’ Category

The Captain Blood Armada

24 Jul

July 24, 1935

Los Angeles Examiner

Warners Rush Ships for Scenes in Captain Blood

Construction of five pirate boats to be used in the filming of Captain Blood was being rushed on the Warner Brothers lot today, anticipating the picture’s going into production the first week of August.

The ships are being made under the supervision of Anton Grot, art director, who designed the lavish sets for A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Warner Brothers special directed by Max Reinhardt.

Although Captain Blood’s boat, the Arabella, is the smallest craft under construction, the combined efforts of Grot, his sixteen assistants and the studio department are so focused on the ship that it may be best of its kind ever turned out.

A group of professional boat builders have been recruited from local seaport towns, and professional ship painters also have been called in to work on the project.

Work on the “Captain Blood Armada” started early this year shortly after announcement by Warner Brothers that the filming of Sabatini’s pirate yarn actually would get under way this summer. The first steps taken were the collection of books on pirate craft and the tabulating of data to be used by Grot’s assistants in making working drawings. One of the research books used was “Souvenirs de Marine,” which went out of print in 1886. Another book studied was “Histoire de la Marine.”

Featuring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, Captain Blood is the first of twelve super productions to be made by Warner Brothers-First National. They are Anthony Adverse, Frisco Kid, Charge of the Light Brigade, Lafitte the Pirate Legionnaire, Ceiling Zero, Green Pastures, Petrified Forest, Radio Jamboree of 1935, and The Fighter.

— Tim

 

Souvenirs de Marine

24 Jul

One of the primary references used by Art Director Anton Grot’s team for the design of ships in Captain Blood was the Souvenirs de Marine, written by Vice Admiral Francois-Edmond Paris.

François-Edmond Pâris (1806 – 1893) was one of the most fascinating characters in French maritime history. As a young man he was involved in the last of the grand French scientific expeditions, and helped collect and classify the curiosities of the newly explored lands in Asia and the Pacific. He circumnavigated the globe three times with renowned French captains. As a surveyor and draftsman, he helped with the overwhelming success of these explorations. This opened for him a new opportunity, the honor to command one of the first steamships in the French fleet. A brilliant naval engineer, he greatly helped modernize the French navy of the 1800’s. Most of his books became classics not only in France but abroad. He is notable for his role in organising the Musée National de la Marine (National Navy Museum) in Paris. In 1871 he was appointed curator of the Navy at the Louvre, where Admiral Paris spent the last twenty-two years of his life enriching the collections, and formulating this unique set.

Description: Hard bound in publishers green cloth with blind stamped boards and gilt titles. Large Elephant folios – 22.5 ” x 19″. Massive at over 13 Lbs. each. Each volume holds 60 full page, single sided plates. Originally published 1882-1908. First reprinted in 1910. Profusely illustrated with striking full page plates of marine architectural renderings. RARE!

Souvenirs de marine Collection de plans ou dessins de navires et de bateaux anciens ou modernes existants ou disparus avec les éléments numériques nécessaores à leur construction
Pâris, François-Edmond
Publisher: Gauthier – Villars Et Fils, Paris
Publication Date: 1892, 1910, 1910

Could ships depicted in this masterwork have been models used by Warner Brothers for ships in Captain Blood and Sea Hawk? Quite possibly. Here’s one of the book’s many superb plates:

— Tim

 

The Gentleman from New Guinea

13 Jul

His name is Errol Flynn and into his twenty-six years he has crowded enough experience to satisfy a dozen men. While other actors played at life in stock company repertoire, he has been living it, with dauntless gaiety. Prospecting for gold in New Guinea,being ambushed by natives,negotiating peace between savage tribes, captaining a pearl-diving crew and a copra-trading ship, receiving plaudits as an Olympic athlete – all these activities have just been preparation for the greatest adventure of all, Hollywood.

Adventurer by instinct, he is now actor by accident, he says. However, having “happened into the movies” because of their call to his dramatic sense, and because he “hadn’t yet done them,” he finds them such a challenge that he feels he must make good, in order to prove himself to himself.

Lean and brown, gay and glamorous, no more engaging personality could be found to portray the reckless Captain Peter Blood in the Sabatini tale which records the exploits of a young Irish doctor, who is sold into slavery and turns pirate.

Flynn inherited his craving for excitement from his active ancestors. He is fighting his duels in “Captain Blood” with his historic family sword, which was presented to Lord Terrence Flynn by a loyal follower of the Duke of Monmouth in 1686, the period in which the film is set.

As a boy, Errol made sporadic attempts, invariably failures, to live up to the dignity of his scholarly surroundings. His father was a professor of biology at Cambridge. When Errol wasn’t reading adventure stories, or playing games, he cast fleeting glances at his books, in English and French schools.

Fame as a boxer, which he won at nineteen at the Amsterdam Olympics, failed to satisfy his budding, restless vitality. Probably swaggering a bit in his strong, young manhood, he went to New Guinea where, as British Agent, he was sent out to make peace between native tribes. Learning their dialiects was not difficult, because they have few words and no tenses.

“I would point to objects and try to copy their grunts or shrill exclamations. After a time we would get together, more or less. Maybe,” his smile flashed, “that was where I got my training as an actor. I should be in pantomime, what?”

Silver Screen Magazine, January 1936

— Tim

 

Flynn Lookin’ Like a Million $$$$$$$$$

03 Jul

An(other) Erben Myth

blogs.loc.gov…

Photoplay, July, 1937

— Tim

 

“The Bachelor”

02 Jul

July 2, 1937

Harrison Carroll
LA Evening Herald Express

“Never one to abide by Hollywood custom, Errol Flynn bought a small sailing yacht yesterday and announced that no women will be allowed on board.

In keeping with the policy, the star revealed he has decided to re-christen the yacht “The Bachelor.”

Which, of course, led someone to remind Flynn that he himself is no bachelor–still being married to the exotic French actress Lili Damita.

“She can’t come aboard the yacht either,” declared the Irish actor. “I never saw a woman yet who stand rough sailing without getting either sick or frightened. And I intend to have some real fun in this boat.”

The yacht, of modest size compared to most owned by Hollywood celebrities, was purchased by the star from George Arthur, the producer. It carries an auxiliary motor as well as sails.”

*******

Errol sails The Bachelor, aka Cheerio II

— Tim

 

Baby Talk

24 Jun

June 24, 1935

Film Flam with Sidney Skolsky
Hollywood Citizen News

Lily Damita has told intimates that the reason she got married is that she wants a baby (Flynn).

*******

June 30, 1935

Louella Parsons
Movie-Go-Round
Los Angeles Examiner

The real story behind the marriage of Lily Damita to handsome Errol Flynn is that the gay Damita has a yen to go domestic in a big way. She confided to a close friend months ago that she was tired of gadding about.

“The next time I meet a man I really like,” she said. “I am going to marry him, settle down and have babies. I believe I want a child more than anything else in the world.”

*******
She lived a gay life in Europe and Hollywood before semi-settling down with Flynn …

She seems to be showing in this photo … just about everything but a baby bump!

Press speculation on how their baby would look …

It took guile and a while …

— Tim

 

Wedding Dinner Like Flynn

23 Jun

June 22, 1935

Louella Parsons
Los Angeles Examiner

Lily Damita and Errol Flynn entertaining twelve of their intimates at a wedding dinner.

*******

June 24, 2019

Reine Davies
Hollywood Parade

Lily Damita and Errol Flynn’s honeymoon house atop Lookout Mountain was the “location” for high revelry last Thursday night, when the entertained at a formal dinner, not only to celebrate their marriage the previous day, but Errol’s birthday as well.

The vivacious Lili had the attractive home bounding with valley lilies, white roses and gardenias, and the party was high-spotted when the butler, with befitting fanfare, brought on a huge wedding cake, followed by another for Errol.

Those who wished the Frenchy Lili and her Irish husband great happiness were Dolores Del Rio and Cedric Gibbons, the Countess de Maigret, Peggy Fears, George Cukor, Al Kaufman, Lloyd Pantages, Rene Hubert, and those hospitable romancers, Lyda Roberti and Bud Ernst.

To carry on the celebrating, Al Kaufman later took the entire party to the Miramar Hotel, where they greeted “Colonel” Gus Arnheim, and danced to his very danceable music.

*******

Up on Lookout Mountain with newlyweds Errol and Lookout Lili Flynn

8946 Appian Way on Lookout Mountain in the Hollywood Hills

To the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica

“Where they greeted “Colonel” Gus Arnheim, and danced to his very danceable music.”
[Look at Lookout Lil’ being used to portray “Sweet Georgia Brown in this Gus Arheim music video! What a coincidence!]

— Tim

 

Le Hollywood Honeymoon

23 Jun

June 21, 1935

Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express

Honeymooners Lily Damita and Errol Flynn showed up at the Trocadero only a few hours after their marriage in Yuma and got a royal reception from the stay-up-laters.

*******
“Cafe Trocadero was an upscale nightclub that opened on the Sunset Strip in 1934 and immediately became the place where Hollywood stars went to be seen. Photographs of the stars out on the town at the Troc one night might appear in The Hollywood Reporter the next day, as both Cafe Trocadero and THR were owned by William R. Wilkerson. A black tie French-inspired supper club, at 8610 Sunset Boulevard in the posh Sunset Plaza section of the Strip, it was one of the most famous nightclubs in the world.”

— Tim

 

Captain Cary

19 Jun

June 19, 1935

Lloyd Pantages
I Cover Hollywood
Los Angeles Examiner

Cary Grant is being tested for the lead in Captain Blood at Warners. If he gets it, it will be the second time he has been loaned from his home lot, Paramount, since his advent into the cinema. His only other loan was to Twentieth Century for Born to be Bad. Incidently, Captain Blood was originally slated for Robert Donat until the English courts decided that his contract with Warners was invalid and that he should remain in England with another company.

— Tim

 

Damita Flim Flams Flynn

18 Jun

Marriage Makes News Around the Globe

U.S.A.

June 17, 1935
Evening Herald Express
Flim Flam with Sidney Skolsky

Lili Damita and Errol Flynn have made plans to elope to Yuma this week.

June 19, 1935
Evening Herald Express
Lili Damita, Errol Flynn Flying to Yuma to Wed

It took a handsome Irish actor, Errol Flynn, to lead the elusive Lili Damita, vivacious French film actress to the altar.

At least the couple took off at a Los Angeles airport in a black and yellow “monoplane of romance” and headed in the general direction of Yuma, Ariz., with the announcement that they would be married at a civil ceremony there.

“I’ve been engaged four times, but this is my first marriage,” the actress said. “But our honeymoon will have to wait. Errol has to take some film tests and so do I.”

The plane was piloted by Ted Brown. Bud Ernst, friend of the couple, who had planned to take Lyda Roberti to Yuma also for a double wedding, accompanied them, although his fiance had to stay behind. An unromantic studio called her to work and sent her out on location.*

AUSTRALIA

ROMANIA

* Ernst & Roberti & took the flight and tied the knot a few days later:

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— Tim