Due Out Friday
“Hiddleston displays his inner Errol Flynn”
Skull Island was “a no-brainer” says Samuel K. Jackson:
“I was trying to grow up and be Errol Flynn at one point. I wanted to jump from ship to ship, with a sword in my teeth.”
— Tim
Archive for the ‘Main Page’ Category
As You Wish
06
Mar
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Carl Elwes as Errol Flynn
On tour discussing The Princess Bride, including this weekend in Florida
Merging multiple news sources …
“Cary Elwes was chosen for the role of Westley in Princess Bride because he reminded Carl Reiner of the swashbuckling heroes of early cinema, specifically Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks As depicted below, he later joined Flynn and Fairbanks in playing Robin Hood, of course.
Elwes and Mandy Patinkin spent more months perfecting their famous swordfight — right- and left-handed. Reiner hired the best coaches in Hollywood: Peter Diamond and Bob Anderson. Not only did both men train the original swashbuckler, Errol Flynn, they both worked on Star Wars.”
— Tim
A Big Easy Quiz
03
Mar
Well, maybe not so easy …
Thanks to top Flynnside source(s).
How do the below images relate to Errol? What, where, why, and with whom????
— Tim
Merci to Bob!
02
Mar
Thanks to Our Man Bob, I was able to learn before leaving New Orleans that, per Buster Wiles, Errol visited Arnaud’s and Antoines, two of the Crescent City’s most legendary restaurants.
Arnaud’s has what is considered one of the world’s greatest bars. It is also often said to be “the most beautiful dining room in New Orleans, Arnaud’s offers the quintessential New Orleans dining experience. Remaining true to its traditions and courtesies, Arnaud’s has served exceptional Creole cuisine for nearly 100 years.”
Errol is very prominently mentioned in the obituary of Germaine Cazenave Wells, the daughter of “Count Arnoud”, an astonishing New Orleans legend in her own right.
“No New Orleans trip is complete” without a “sumptuous” French-Creole meal at this “classic of all classics” (established 1840) “in the heart of the French Quarter”, where “oysters Rockefeller was invented”; the “elegant” setting is “composed of many rooms” that boast “museum-quality artifacts” (“ask for a guided tour”), so even if prices are thoroughly modern, everything else is a “throwback to a more gracious time.”
Antoine’s, Daddy-O, featuring Candy and Kostner in a film Flynn would have been sensational in. You dig?
— Tim
The Buccaneer?
01
Mar
We here all know Flynn was by far the best buccaneer in cinematic history. But he was always a Brit in one form or another, right? Here in New Orleans, however, the most “heroic” or at least heralded real-life buccaneer of all was the anti-Brit Jean LaFitte. How do you think Flynn would have fit and fared in the role of The Buccaneer, Jean LaFitte?
“The Buccaneer [was] a 1938 American adventure film made by Paramount Pictures based on Jean Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. It was produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille.”
“The film stars Fredric March as Lafitte, Franciska Gaal and Akim Tamiroff with Margot Grahame, Walter Brennan, Ian Keith, Spring Byington, Douglass Dumbrille, Beulah Bondi and Anthony Quinn in supporting roles.” This, therefore, would have “reunited” Errol with “I Adore You” Margot Grahame, paired him with Hungarian star Francisca Gaal (fresh off her noted role as “Lilli”, and had his radio producer, silver screen great, Cecil B. DeMille, producing him for the first and only time on film.
“Cecil B. DeMille remade the film in 1958 in Technicolor and VistaVision with the same title, but because of ill health, he allowed Henry Wilcoxon, his longtime friend and associate, to produce it, and the film was directed by Anthony Quinn, who was his son-in-law at the time. DeMille received no screen credit, but did make a personal appearance in the prologue to the film, much as he did in The Ten Commandments. The 1958 version of The Buccaneer stars Yul Brynner, Charles Boyer and Claire Bloom, with Charlton Heston as Andrew Jackson. Douglass Dumbrille appeared in both versions and Quinn acted in the earlier version.”
I have not found clips from the 1938 version with the always excellent Fredric Marsh, but here’s a photo, followed by a terrific trailer, in ’58, featuring Ceci B. DeMille and Yul. Yul agree, I believe, that Flynn would have been better than Brynner.
**********
In the French Quarter footsteps of Flynn, can be found the following relevant sites, all along Bourbon Street:
“Jean LaFitte’s Blacksmith Shop”, a front for his piratical activities.
And here, upstairs, is where LaFitte is said to have planned the Battle of New Orleans, in 1812 (and where, during WWII, Errol was also in a bit of a battle himself, when this building, downstairs, was known as the Old Absinthe House.
The second and third photos below of a 19th Century painting of the Battle of 1812 in the original planning room upstairs, and a wooden model of LaFitte’s lead ship, carved by one of the pirates from that ship.
— Tim
Hola from NOLA
28
Feb
In like Flynn at the Lundi Gras tonight. Presently at one of Errol’s Big Easy watering holes, the Sazerac Bar, in the Hotel Roosevelt. Been gathering Flynnfo all about town.
If anyone has any request of me to Flynnvestigate or consider please do send asap. For example, anything from Buster Wiles book, in which he discusses his trip to NO LA Land with Errol, circa ’43, which I do not have with me!
P.S. Hard to tell from these photos, but that’s the great Harry Connick Jr. heading up the Krewe of Orpheus Parade tonight. That’s Harry at the front of the float, with beads for throwing to the crowd draped over his right arm.
— Tim
Ousted Oscar nominee
26
Feb
Dear fellow Flynn fans,
2017 marks the sixtieth anniversary of “The sun also rises”, the Darryl F. Zanuck movie version of Ernest Hemingway`s breakthrough novel “Fiesta”.
Errol, who received fourth billing, gave a fine performance as a world dreary old chap much like the Flynn of later years. This earned him a nomination as best supporting actor at the Academy Awards one year later. Here is what he had to say in an interview with EF biographer Tony Thomas in early 1958.
“Errol, the last picture in which we saw you, “The Sun Also Rises”, and even the critics who had not liked you before said that you were wonderful.”
“Well, if the critics said that, you know, it’s a kind word in a hard cruel world.”
“The news has just come through from Hollywood that you have been nominated for an Academy Award.”
“Yes, isn’t that something? I never thought it would happen to me.”
When however his nomination was mysteriously withdrawn with no official explanation given, it was anyone`s guess who had put a banana skin under the Ol` Swashbuckler`s shoe on that slippery slope towards Oscar called Red Carpet.
The five actors who were nominated were (the winner) Red Buttons in Sayonara, Sessue Hayakawa in Bridge on the River Kwai, Vittorio de Sica in A Farewell to Arms, Arthur Kennedy in Peyton Place and Russ Tamblyn in Peyton Place. The last one can be considered as the most likely substitute for our Hollywood hero.
While daughter Rory Flynn attributed the snub job to her father’s involvement with Fidel Castro during the Cuban Revolution (www.cinemaretro.com…), the book “Inside Oscar” blames the blunder on Twentieth Century Fox for the studio had listed him in their Oscar Campaign ads as Lead Actor, thus thwarting Errol’s effort to get one of those golden boys. The same mishap happened to Roddy McDowell for his role in the sand and sandal film “Cleopatra”.
Maybe it was then and there when Errol coined the phrase: “Hollywood has the utmost respect for the dead, but none for the living.” For once it was “Out and not in like Flynn”.
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
Graham Greene, Errol and Underaged Girls
22
Feb
To answer your question, GT, Michael Korda, who was Graham Greene’s friend and editor says that Greene and Errol did meet in Havana, for drinks at the Hotel Inglaterra.
They would have had much to discuss aside from politics. Greene knew a great deal about Hollywood films. Moreover, both their careers were nearly destroyed by infamous encounters with underaged girls.
In Greene’s case, however, his actions were quite calm and premediated and he was fully aware that the girl in question was nine years old.
From 1935 to 1940, Greene worked as the film critic for The Spectator magazine, one of the publications for which I write. In total, he reviewed 400 films, including two of Errol’s, (the notices of which I am trying to find in the archives.)
In 1937, in the supplement, Night And Day, Greene chose to review ‘Wee Willie Winkie’, the new Shirley Temple vehicle. I reproduce the article below. Please bear in mind that Greene was a humourist with a penchant for irony.
Night And Day, October 28th, 1937
‘Wee Willie Winkie’ (20th Century Fox)
by Graham Greene
‘The owners of a child star are like leaseholders – their property diminishes in value every year. Time’s chariot is at their backs: before them acres of anonymity. What is Jackie Coogan now but a matrimonial squabble? Miss Shirley Temple’s case, though, has peculiar interest. Infancy with her is a disguise. Her appeal is more secret and more adult. Already, two years ago, Miss Temple was a fancy little piece. In ‘Captain January’, she wore trousers with the mature suggestiveness of a Dietrich.
Now, in ‘Wee Willie Winkie’, wearing short kilts, she is a complete totsy. Watch her swaggering stride across the Indian barrack-square; hear the gasp of excited expectation from her antique audience when the sergeant’s palm is raised; watch the way she measures a man with agile, studio eyes, with dimpled depravity.
It is clever, but it cannot last. Her admirers – middle aged men and clergymen – respond to her dubious coquetry, her well-shaped and desirable little body, packed with vitality, only because the safety curtain of story and dialogue drops between their intelligence and their desire. ”Why are you making my Mummy cry?” – what could be purer than that? And the scene when dressed in a white nightdress she begs grandpa to take Mummy to a dance – what could be more virginal? On those lines in her new picture, made by John Ford, is horrifyingly competent. ‘
In those days, film critics did not write articles accusing studios and child stars of catering to paedophilia. The bien pensants failed to see the funny side and created an uproar. Fox sued, and, as a result, night descended on Night And Day and, for a few months, Greene’s career as a critic.
Greene was not a very nice man – well, let’s be fair, he was a bit of a shit at times, but after ‘Wee Willie Winkie’, one can forgive him everything. Besides, in all seriousity, he may have had a point. (Just being ironic again, of course. Gosh, Americans, though I love you all, can be so damn literal.)
— PW
Up That Rigging, You Monkeys! Aloft!
22
Feb
Further proving Errol’s profoundly unique entertainment importance and popularity can never be fenced in, nor fenced out, here is an account of one way in which his sublime cinematic swordfighting has influenced new generations through video gaming, albeit in an “insulting” manner.
~”It would be Hollywood star Errol Flynn that gave the answer needed.”
— Tim
