Director Mike Curtiz, one of the best on the Warner lot, has a bad memory for names….He calls John Garfield “Group Theater”….Claude Rains, to Curtiz, always is “Mister Theater Guild”….Wayne Morris is “Bank Night”….Olivia de Havilland is “Baby”….In Elizabeth and Essex, Curtiz became impatient with a love scene that Errol Flynn and Bette Davis were doing, and stopped the action….”Remember always,” he explained, that this is a 17th Century love story without the highballs, jingle bells and rah-rah”….
Errol Flynn’s finally got a private pilot’s licence and flew to the Elizabeth and Essex location at the Warner ranch in his own plane.*
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* The only parts of Elizabeth and Essex filmed at the Warner Ranch were the sepia scenes in “Venta Cruz”, featuring Sir Francis Drake and his men hacking their way through the isthmus jungle.
The Warner Ranch was located in Calabasas, near where Calabasas Park is now located, “near Calabasas Creek and the vicinity of Mulholland Drive and Valmar Road.” Errol filmed several films in Calabasas.
The lower portion of the Errol-era aerial below includes the Warner Ranch.
Venta Cruz is called “”Cruces” in present-day Panama. It is located at the head of the Chagres River. The map below shows the Spanish trades routes during the days of Drake.
As this video of the Virginia City World Premier Tour poignantly depicts, 1940 was a wondrous time in Hollywood history, and in American history. Everything changed in ’41 – as abruptly as this video.
For a great review of Virginia City, and especially of Errol’s unmatched magnetism as a film star, see the Bogie Film Blog at this link.
Errol was a very frequent traveler to Mexico during his heydays in Hollywood. He drove, he flew, and he sailed to South of the Border. In celebration of today’s Cinco de Mayo holiday, here are five chronological photos taken in Mexico City, Acapulco, and Morelia, plus a bonus bow-and-arrow-fishing film with Howard Hill in the famous sportfishing waters off the coast of Old Mexico.
Raphaël Millet is a film director, producer and critic with a passion for early cinema. He has published two books, “Le Cinéma de Singapour” (2004) and “Singapore Cinema” (2006), as well as directed documentaries such as “Gaston Méliès and His Wandering Star Film Company” (2015), screened as part of the 2015 Singapore International Film Festival, and “Chaplin in Bali” (2017), which opened the Bali International Film Festival in 2017.
Errol Flynn’s four assignments, in order of their production, will be The White Rajah, written by him; The Sea Hawk, The Knight and the Lady, with Bette Davis, and Don Juan. Each will be a $2,000,000 film.
Movie location scouts have found a replica of Tennyson’s famous near Chatsworth, Cal., and the scene will shortly become one of Hollywood’s biggest sets. The picture, of course, is The Charge of the Light Brigade. Warner Bros had to find a valley floor big enough for the operations of 300 infantry and of 690 calvarymen. Tennyson’s poem had only 600 calvarymen in the charge, but studio research depts. are more accurate than poets and they have determined that 690 calvarymen actually stormed the Russian fortifications.
These fortifications, to be erected upon the top of the hills forming one wall of the valley, are to be on a grand scale. No miniatures for this battle scene, which, if you remember, finds the English the French and the Turks pitted against the armies of the czar.
Looking toward an English market for this Crimean War special, Warners is out to get a British cast to support Irish-born Errol Flynn in his second screen appearance. They have cabled Irving Asher to test the best available young actors in London for the role of Flynn’s younger brother.
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“The Battle of Balaclava is one of the most famous battles of all time, despite being a comparatively minor engagement in the Crimean War. The futile heroics of the soldiers who fought there may have gone relatively unnoticed if not for a picture and a poem.”
“The battle itself is fraught with anecdotes and personalities that combine to make legend. The events of October 25th, 1854 evolve like the episodes of a Greek tragedy, with the fate of the soldiers hinging on the acts of a handful of characters.”
