No other aspect of the history of the Robin Hood legend deserves more notice than the hero’s participation in the May Day Games.
May Day Games and the Robin Hood Legend
Robin Hood ballads reflect the discontent of ordinary people with political conditions in medieval England. They were especially upset about new laws that kept them from hunting freely in forests that were now claimed as the property of kings and nobles. Social unrest and rebellion swirled through England at the time the Robin Hood ballads first became popular. This unrest erupted in an event called the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.
The earliest known mention of Robin Hood is in a ballad called Piers Plowman, in which a character mentions that he knows “rimes of Robin Hood.” This and other references from the late 1300s suggest that Robin Hood was well established as a popular legend by that time. One source of that legend may lie in the old French custom of celebrating May Day. A character called Robin des Bois, or Robin of the Woods, was associated with this spring festival and may have been transplanted to England—with a slight name change. May Day celebrations in England in the 1400s featured a festival “king” called Robin Hood.
— A fight brewed today over the estate of actor Errol Flynn, whose will was filed for probate here Wednesday. The will, dated April 27, 1954, left most of his estate to his widow, Mrs. Patrice Wymore Flynn, with specific bequests to his children and parents. In Hollywood, his former wife, Mrs. Nora Haymes, said Flynn had told her there was another will dated sometime in 1957 in which he left everything to his children and parents. She said she planned to consult an attorney to protect the interests of her two daughters by Flynn.
Melvin Belli, San Francisco attorney representing Beverly Aadland, Flynn’s 17-year-old companion for the past year, said he was amazed that no provision had been made for his client He said he knew Flynn wanted to provide for Beverly and Belli said he would do something about it. Flynn and his widow had been separated for some time while he travelled to Europe and the Caribbean with Beverly.
Errol Flynn and Warner Brothers are feuding, with Mr. Flynn having told the studio that he will return from his vacation when he feels like it.
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April 18, 2005
IN LIKE FLYNN
No film star ever bettered Errol Flynn in tights, but he was the soul of insouciance even when he wore a cavalry uniform or bluejeans. That’s the revelation of “Errol Flynn: The Signature Collection” (Warner Home Video), which features the athletic, rakish star not just as an inspired Sir Francis Drake take-off in the vivid “The Sea Hawk” (1940) and as an uncharacteristically stiff Earl of Essex in “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” (1939) but also as a gallant General George A. Custer in “They Died with Their Boots On” (1941) and as a gritty frontier sheriff in the colorful Western potboiler “Dodge City” (1939). The set includes a surprisingly frank biographical portrait, “The Adventures of Errol Flynn.”
But the key film in the set is the sweeping, ebullient swashbuckler “Captain Blood” (1935). Three years before he became the most dashing Robin Hood yet (in “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” available on a separate Warner DVD), the young Australian actor, in his Hollywood breakthrough, proved his panache at righting wrongs. In this film, based on Rafael Sabatini’s 1922 novel about seventeenth-century pirates of the Caribbean and directed by Michael Curtiz, Flynn is Peter Blood, a peaceful doctor who makes the mistake of treating a rebel during the tumultuous reign of King James II and ends up a slave in Jamaica. The ravishing Olivia de Havilland (Flynn’s frequent co-star) plays the feisty, sympathetic niece of the tyrannical British slave owner; Blood and a barracks full of enslaved rebels (good men all) make their escape by stealing a Spanish ship and becoming buccaneers.
Flynn combined aristocratic dash with rebel flair—in “Captain Blood,” he defies the ruling order with absolute confidence. At one point, de Havilland says, “I believe you’re talking treason.” Flynn replies, “I hope I’m not obscure.” (This exchange has a close echo in “Robin Hood,” when de Havilland exclaims, “You speak treason!” and Flynn responds, “Fluently.”) In his autobiography, “My Wicked, Wicked Ways,” Flynn wrote that “youthful and virile roles” like cowboys and swordsmen “require gusto and genuine interest—such as I had felt at the time I was making ‘Captain Blood’ and ‘Robin Hood.’ ” He’s right: in these movies, his exuberance irradiates the screen.
Published in April 18, 2005, print edition of The New Yorker.
Drunk or Not So Drunk – That was the Question
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LIFE Magazine – April 1, 1939
“Last fortnight [Virginia City’s] population totaled 500, most of whom got so drunk that Warner Bros. curtailed its visit and hustled its valuable stars back to Reno’s safer streets.”
THE UNDERSIGNED REPRESENTING THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA CITY DEMAND THAT YOU RETRACT AND APOLOGIZE IN YOUR NEXT ISSUE THE FOLLOWING ISSUE PUBLISHED IN IN APRIL FIRST ISSUE, PAGE 32: “LAST FORTNIGHT ITS POPULATION TOTALED 500, MOST OF WHOM GOT SO DRUNK THAT WARNER BROS CURTAILED ITS VISIT AND HUSTLED ITS VALUABLE STARS BACK TO RENO’S SAFER STREETS.” THE STATEMENT IS FALSE AND AN INSULT TO THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA.
WILL COBB, STATE SENATOR – THOMAS LYNCH, ASSEMBLY MAN
VIRGINIA CITY, NEV.
Editor’s Response: Thousands of visitors poured into Virginia City that day. Probably they were the ones that raised most of the commotion. The fact remains that what made the movie stars hustle back was the conduct of the patrons of the Virginia Theater where the stars were scheduled to make personal appearances. Said a U.P. dispatch to the New York Times: “So gala was the occasion that Manager Hart installed a bar in his lobby and served free whiskey and champagne to all ticket holders…. Manager Hart rushed new relays of case goods from the Bucket of Blood across the street.” When the Warner Bros. executives reached the theater, they decided the patrons were drunk, that the situation was too dangerous for them to risk their valuable stars. If Errol Flynn, for instance, had received a black eye from a flying bottle, it would have cost them $20,000 a day. So they took everybody back to Reno.
I read your issue of April 15 that Warner Bros.could not risk taking Errol Flynn et al into the Virginia City Theater because they decided “the patrons were drunk” and there was some danger Mr. Flynn’s being hit by a flying bottle.
I do not know who your informant is, but he or she s – to put it mildly – a liar. I was in that theater. My family was there. great many people I know were also there. There was no drunkenness and no disorderly conduct. Mr. Flynn would have been very much safer than he was in Reno.
True, Mr. Hart did dispense free champagne, but those who drank it were on the streets and not in the theater.
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Errol the Auctioneer, on the same stage used by Gentleman Jim Corbett, Mark Twain, Lillie Langtry, John Philip Souza, and Edwin Booth, among many other legendary greats
“Piper’s Opera House is a historic performing arts venue in Virginia City. It served as a training facility in 1897 for heavyweight boxing champion Gentleman Jim Corbett, in preparation for his title bout with Bob Fitzsimmons. The current structure was built by entrepreneur John Piper in 1885 to replace his 1878 opera house that had burned down. The 1878 venue, in turn, had been to replace Piper’s 1863 venue which was destroyed by the 1875 Great Fire in Virginia City. Mark Twain spoke from the original Piper’s stage in 1866, and again a century later in the third venue, as portrayed by Hal Holbrook in his one-man play Mark Twain Tonight! A lynch mob hung a victim from the first venue’s rafters in 1871. American theatrical producer David Belasco was stage manager at the second opera house before moving to New York City. Piper’s opera houses played host to Shakespearean thespians such as Edwin Booth. Musical performers Lilly Langtry, Al Jolson and John Philip Sousa once performed here. In 1940, Errol Flynn auctioned off historic Piper memorabilia from the opera house stage, during a live NBC broadcast that coincided with the premiere of Flynn’s new movie Virginia City.”
During April of 1939, newspapers throughout the U.S. published a Chesterfield Cigarettes ad featuring Errol and Olivia in their Dodge City costumes. The film’s famous world premier was on April 1, 1939. The ads below were published on April 10 in the Yuma Sun, and April 28 in the Detroit Jewish News.
in January of 1947 the National Geographic Magazine published an article called “The Errol Flynn of Sponge Divers”.
The Errol of this and the Flynn of that were honorary titles at the time. But in the case of one exceptionally dangerous profession we can well picture our Hollywood hero genuinely taking a liking to the complimentary comparison.
World traveller and life time adventurer that he was, I wonder if he read this article and got the idea for the movie “MARU MARU” then and there, or if the namesake hotel in Tanzania did the deed.
Take a deep breath and dive in here yourselves: sanceau.com…
Mon Film was the leading “film photonovel” publication in France in the decades before and after World War II. (It was “on hiatus” during the war.) This issue was published on February 25, 1948, seventy-two years ago today.
Thank you to our great EFB Flynnmate and Author Tina (aka Baribel), for originally publishing this cover and information regarding it, nine years ago today. Danke, Tina!
“Hopkins and Stars see club opening.”
“Washington, D.C., Feb. 8.”
“Washington’s newest supper club opened last night with celebrities and stars in attendance. Here, Harry Hopkins, Secretary of Commerce, movie star Errol Flynn and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, wealthy socialite, found their way to fun. Note the ‘pop’ bottle on the table.”
[Note, also, how Lili was cut out of the story, quite literally in Life Magazine’s coverage, which did not include her in this same photo. That had to infuriate Miss Dynamita!]
Harry Hopkins was FDR’s main man for both the New Deal, and for international diplomacy. (Many believe he was also either a Soviet agent or Soviet dupe.)
Liz Whitney was a premier equestrian and horse owner, along with her legendary husband,Jock Whitney, “master of one of the great American fortunes and a pace-setting leader in a kaleidoscope of fields.”
Adapted from American Cinematographer, August 1948
For the boating scenes in tropical Mexico, Columbia Studios chartered Errol Flynn’s luxurious yacht, The Zaca, and Flynn himself served aboard as skipper. Scenes were filmed above and below decks, at anchorages in Acapulco Harbor, at Fort San Diego in Acapulco Bay,
In order to shoot the location sequences for Lady From Shanghai, a company of 50 Hollywood actors and technicians flew to Acapulco, along with 60 Mexican extra players and technicians from Mexico City. More than 15 tons of equipment were shipped from Hollywood, one order of six tons comprising the largest single air express shipment ever undertaken by a movie location company.
Shooting aboard the yacht was, from the space standpoint very difficult, and these scenes, as they appear in the picture, are necessarily cramped in composition — but this actually works in favor of the overall effect because it produces an authentic atmosphere of crowded life aboard a small yacht. During filming aboard The Zaca, a long line of native dugout canoes anchored astern formed a bridge from the barge holding the generator so that electrical cables could be stretched for the camera and sound equipment.
In filming sequences at sea, the camera crew discovered that they could not depend upon their usual light meter readings. Reflections from the surface of the water kicked up more intensity than the meter recorded, causing over-exposure of the scene. This effect was noted in the screening of the first rushes, and a series of experimental tests was made to arrive at some sort of rule-of-thumb that could be used to compensate for the additional amount of light
(Left) On location in Mexico, Welles briefs his crew prior to filming a sequence. At his side is Charles Lawton, ASC, whose outstanding photography adds greatly to the impact of the film. (Center) Errol Flynn’s yacht The Zaca is anchored in Acapulco Harbor. Astern are a line of barges over which electrical cable was stretched between the yacht and the generator boat. (Right) For a scene shot in the jungle streams of Mexico, the camera is mounted on a dugout canoe alongside the boat in which the principle players ride.
