This from Joe Maletta who points out a blooper in Errol’s Charge of the Light Brigade:
Joe MalettaOne of Flynn’s best! The young boy is Scottie Beckett who played Perma the son of J. Carrol Nash’s character. Puran Singh. There is a film blooper when Puran finds and holds his dead son after the massacre at Chukoti. Flynn is trying to console him and as he is doing so, the “dead” son is Wiggling his toes! A little levity aside during a sad moment.
Halloween was yesterday. Time to put away the costumes.
And time for a “Time to Put Away the Costumes” story from the days of Robin Hood.
November 1, 1938
“Behind the Makeup”
“Attendants in the Warner Brothers Studio wardrobe department are storing away
the armor worn by soldiers in the movie Robin Hood. Between each suit
of mail goes a generous number of moth balls. The moth balls are necessary
because movietown armor is made of wool, painted to look like armor.”
– Erskine Johnson, Los Angeles Examiner
This film will never go in moth balls, but its woolen armor did, as reported eighty years ago today.
“It’s the Errol Flynn Robin Hood version complete with mustache. We used brown fleece, a long sleeved green shirt and green pants, fleece tunic, leather belt cut to fit, complete with bow and arrow, leather boots with brown fleece sewn at the tops, and to top that off, a feather in his cap!”
Jack Warner for sure wasn`t born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
Matter of fact he had to toughen himself up as a street kid. These street smarts helped tremendously later on when he made Warner Bros. Studios a major force in film. Once at top of Tinseltown, he never looked back. His stick was that of a penny pinching, horny- corney jokes telling and lavishly living movie mogul.
He had a silver telephone in his office and a hand written register to go with it. Many flynntimos are on the pages shown.
Both items are on display at the American History Museum in Washington, D.C.
“Many stories have circulated about Errol’s visits to Belfast, the most repeated (and uncorroborated!) tales are about the excitement he caused at local dances, packed with adoring girls who’d heard that Flynn was to grace their Saturday-night bop!”
“Ian Rippey, Secretary of the Co Armagh Wildlife Society, reckons that Flynn definitely visited Belfast, and has information about a positive sighting. And Mr Rippey’s letter ended with an intriguing postscript: “Captain Thomas Blood…had Irish Presbyterian if not Ulster connections.” But first, Ian explained why he’s sure that Flynn came to Belfast.”
“A Miss Rene Liggett of Armagh informed me a good few years ago that she remembered seeing Errol Flynn at Queen’s University, Belfast, when she was a student. I assume that she studied biology under Errol Flynn’s father…I knew Miss Liggett from when I joined the Armagh Field Naturalists Society (now the Co Armagh Wildlife Society) in 1974 until her death. I don’t know whether “Miss Liggett saw Errol Flynn only once or on a number of occasions. All she said was that she had seen him…Miss Liggett died in a nursing home some years ago.”
McCormack is widely regarded Ireland’s greatest ever singer and was, in his day, the equivalent in classical terms, of Elvis or the Beatles. He made over 600 recordings across opera, Irish folk, religious music and songs from Russia, Germany, Italy and France.
He settled in America where his friends included the likes of Errol Flynn and John Barrymore. He built “San Patrizio”, in Runyon Park, where Errol later lived when it was known as “The Pines” (featured very prominently as Errol’s estate in the final scene of the movie “Breathless” with Richard Gere.)
McCormack’s left LA in 1938, intending to return to his beloved San Patrizio, but never made it back, due apparently to WWII and ensuing illness. A&P heir, and In with Flynn man, Huntington Hartford, subsequently purchased the property, with Errol famously residing there late in his own life.
“The Old House” may have been McCormack’s last recording. Perhaps it was partially inspired by and/or invoked memories of San Patrizio.
