When and where was this photo taken, and why is he acting like that???
Added Saturday, October 3, 9 pm EST:
Added Saturday, October 3, 9:15 pm EST:
Added Sunday, October 4, 12:30 am:
The identification of “the Garden” (i.e. the Garden of Allah) in the World Wide Photos caption above is incorrect.
— Tim
Olivia de Havilland starred as Maid Marian in the 1938 “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” which was filmed in fall of 1937 in Bidwell Park in Chico. (Enterprise-Record files)
Chico was charmed by Olivia de Havilland, and she by Chico. She graced Bidwell Park in the form of Maid Marian, but it was not Bidwell Park. It was Sherwood Forest in the 1938 classic “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”
It was in late September 1937 that she descended the train into Chico as a 22-year-old. The trees were aflame with orange, red and yellow tinges.
The train held not only her, but all the stars, technicians and props Warner Bros. needed to create a miniature Hollywood set on the banks of Big Chico Creek.
“I thought Chico a most charming town and its citizens welcoming and kind,” de Havilland wrote in a 1987 correspondence with the Chico Enterprise-Record from Paris.
The headquarters were set up in the form of tents by Sycamore Pool. Bidwell Park became a medieval forest.
According to a Sept. 15, 1937 Chico Record clipping, the park had been discovered by a Warner Bros. location scout and film director William Keighley.
“There was no location in California that could compare with Bidwell Park. I can’t understand why Chico has not been discovered before as a site for movies. I must confess my ignorance,” Keighley said.
“When Robin Hood was named for production, I thought a trip to the East or at least the Midwest would be necessary. I did not have any idea that anything such as Bidwell Park existed.”
More than 100 extras were hired for $10 a day. If someone was willing to let actor and famous archer Howard Hill shoot their padded body with an arrow, they could earn an extra $150 a day.
The film had an original budget of $1.25 million, yet it rounded the $2 million mark, making it the most expensive film Warner Bros. had produced to that date.
In an October 1987 interview with this newspaper, the late television director and producer Rudy Behlmer said, “(de Havilland) was so beautiful then, the rest of the cast, the breadth of the staging. There wasn’t anything you could point to and say, ‘Well, that didn’t work very well.’”
One reason the aesthetic was so appealing was the new three-strip Technicolor process used to create it. Three separate strips of film were exposed simultaneously in the same camera, providing rich color on screen.
“This was the best example of that early Technicolor process with the forest scenes and the costumes and so on. And it is still considered one of the best examples of Technicolor,” Behlmer said.
After six weeks of shooting, de Havilland, as well as the rest of the crew, left Chico on Nov. 9, 1937, to the sight of 500 well-wishers gathered at the train station to bid them adieu. The Chico High band played music for them. The north section of Ivy Street was named Warner Street to commemorate the time of production.
It wasn’t until May 1938 that “The Adventures of Robin Hood” was released to great critical and popular acclaim. On May 14, 1938, it arrived at the Senator Theatre for a three-day run.
The actress came back to Butte County in October 1979 to speak at the Oroville State Theatre.
She remembered Chico as a small, quiet town with an “adorable little hospital.”
A 1987 E-R clipping said that one of the many locals to “fall under the dark-eyed beauty’s spell” was Doctor Newton Thomas Enloe, the founder of Enloe Medical Center. He let de Havilland witness an operation firsthand after she kindly asked.
She and other cast members attended square dances in Paradise on the weekends. The fiddle music delighted them, as did the hospitality of the locals.
“A very kind local gentleman taught me the steps and I joined in with immense pleasure,” de Havilland recalled.
During her stay in Oroville, her motel room was broken into. The doing was not that of Robin Hood. It was at 10 a.m. at the Villa Motel (now Villa Court Inn) that $4,959 worth of clothing and jewelry were stolen and the rest of her belongings scattered about.
Even so, she showed her gratitude to the audience for having her.
“Thank you for recognizing me,” she said.
De Havilland’s acting prowess, among other things, created a fairy tale out of Chico that, like her impact on Hollywood, lasts to this very day
— Tim
October 3. 1937 @ Bidwell Park, Chico, California
October 3. 1937 @ Bidwell Park
— Tim
Publicity photo of Errol circa his filming of Murder at Monte Carlo at Teddington Studio in London.
September 30, 1935
The Argus – Melbourne, Australia
“The day of Errol Flynn is bound to arrive sooner or later, for he has ability and a debonair charm of manner that must win him recognition as a light comedian of no mean order.”
— Tim
September 29, 1959
The Red Skelton Show
Filmed at (CBS) Television City, at the famed Studio 33, the home of the Red Skelton Hour and Show, the Carol Burnett Show, I Love Mama, the Mary Tyler Moore Hour, the Price is Right, Match Game, Hollywood Squares, the Steve Allen Comedy Hour, and many, many others. With it’s massive studios, and other favorable conditions, Television City very powerfully signalled and helped make possible the relocation of television’s epicenter from New York to LA.
~ “Red Skelton portrays hobo Freddie the Freeloader and Flynn his friend, “the Duke.” After a group of beatniks, including Beverly Aadland, mistakes Freddie’s shack for a coffee bar, Freddie is informed by a policeman that all bums have been ordered by the city council to leave town by sundown. Freddie and the Duke decide that the only way they will be able to stay in town is to open their own beatnik coffee bar. Singer Scott Engel (who later went on to fame as Scott Walker of the Walker Brothers) sings Paper doll.”
…
— Tim
September 28, 1935
Harrison Carroll
One of the years strangest sites in Hollywood may be Errol Flynn acting in the story of his own life.
The new Warner Brothers’ discovery, who’s also the husband of Lili Damita, wants to put the story of his adventures into a scenario and, if the studio accepts it, to play the leading role himself.
Flynn could start the story in 1928 when he boxed for Ireland in the Olympic Games in Amsterdam. He’d include his experiences as a member of the British constabulary in New Guinea, his discovery of gold in the savage infested country, his operations as a skipper of a trading ship in the South Pacific, and his near death in a typhoon.
The young Irish actor, who’ll make his big did for fame in Captain Blood, would collaborate on the scenario with an experienced Hollywood writer.
If the story is carried on to Flynn’s arrival in Hollywood, conceivably, his romance with Lili Damita may be included.
…
Starting with his time on the Irish Olympic Boxing team might have proven a one-round knockout:
Flynn on Sirocco may have been better place to start, leaving out Amsterdam altogether:
Few men have ever survived adventures like those Errol experienced in New Guinea.
Only unholy matrimony with Lili Dynamita was more perilous.
Here she is, the ultimate Miss Adventure herself, Tiger ‘Lil,
Pre-Code in ’34, and post-Flynn in a few misadventurous years more:
— Tim
A New documentary about Errol’s years in Majorca, featuring Michael Douglas, et al
Alucinante haber conseguido la colaboración de Michael Douglas… Un lujo participar en esta aventura con @roseramills @josemmaiz @BackstageProdu @IB3 pic.twitter.com…
— Tirso Calero (@TirsoCalero) September 22, 2020
Diana Dill in 1943, six months before she married Kirk Douglas. I believe Errol dated her in 1942.
— Tim
September 26, 1942
…
Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express
LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!
Out at Warners, on the Edge of Darkness set, they are shooting another war story. The scene is a church in occupied Norway. But the villagers are not listening to a sermon. They are hearing reports of Nazi terrorism.
Up on the pulpit is the minister, Richard Fraser. In the congregation are Walter Huston, Ann Sheridan, Errol Flynn, Monte Blue and most of the cast of the picture.
Edge of Darkness is heavy drama. When director Lewis Milestone gets shot, however, the players relax, sit around the set and converse in ordinary Hollywood manner.
Today Ann Sheridan is jittery because she is trying to cut down on cigarettes. She’s allowing herself one every hour, on the hour.
…
Smokin’ Annie, “on the hour” with Errol, between nicotine fits on the set of the Edge:
Looks like Annie was well off the wagon after the war, smoking away as the notorious Nora Prentiss:
— Tim
