Robert Florczak, author of Errol Flynn: the Life Chronology is having a book signing in Hollywood on May 18th at 2:00 p.m. at Larry Edmunds Book shop. A very collectable item with lots of positive reviews, many rare photos and documents and a day-by-day commentary on Flynn’s extraordinary life and times. An excellent coffee-table book you will want to have in your Errol Flynn collection of books!
— David DeWitt
British magazine contest from their September 1936 Issue, as filming begins on Errol Flynn’s Another Dawn, September 25, into October.
— Topper
You can watch now at Paramount + Roku Channel and YouTube streaming services!
— David DeWitt
Rory Flynn sends us this nighttime view of of the huge promo picture for her son’s original movie “Zoey 102” based on the teen series Sean Flynn starred in as a you man called Zoey 101. The kids are all grown up now, and the show’s giant following has been waiting for this update literally for years! This promo on the side of a tall building in Manhattan is now live. The show, scheduled for July 27, will be streamed on Netflix July 27! Audiences of the original show have had many questions about Sean Flynn’s character Chase Mathews and Zoey Brooks played by Jamie Lynn Spears … now they will finally get the answers!
Thanks, Rory!
— David DeWitt
The Mail Bag brings great news about filmmaker Jack Marino’s film KILL ZONE that has just been distributed worldwide. Congrats, Jack! He writes:
This was my very first film. I came up with the concept and the title, and in 1984 it was the first film I produced. In 1983 I was alone with my partners all deciding to shut down our first production company, SPARTAN PRODUCTIONS, INC. We broke up because we were all burnt out with the massive rejection that comes with the name, Hollywood.
By 1983 I was working in a video duplication house. I had gone from video dupe house to video dupe house. I wanted to make my own film and I told my wife that if I didn’t make a film, which would be a miracle in 1984 we would head back to Boston in the spring of 1985.
I came up with the idea for KILL ZONE and put it all down in a treatment. In the meantime, my ex-partner David A Prior and I collaborated on a dozen scripts over the previous three years. David was directing a movie shot on video called Sledgehammer. He was doing the filming in his apartment in Venice and a location up in Simi Valley. He called me up and I went down there to see what was progressing. I was impressed with the fact Dave had found a financial backer and had written and was directing the project himself.
Dave and I arranged a meeting and at that meeting, I told him my idea about KILL ZONE and that I had also set up a new company called Spartanfilms, Ltd. We discussed the story of KILL ZONE and he read my treatment. He was excited about the idea so we came to an agreement and brought Fritz Matthews back into the fold. We started to write the script and I came up with the concept for the cover artwork. The agreement was that I would be the producer, Dave would be the director and Fritz would star in the picture.
Our biggest problem was where would the money to finance this film come from? My parents were coming out to L.A to see their first granddaughter and I wanted Dave to meet my father. We all sat down and laid out the plan to garner financing. We would get 50 people to put up $1000.00 each to make this picture. Now, remember neither Dave nor I had ever made a 35mm film before however, we were certain and confident we could pull it off.
My father and mother committed to putting up the first $1000.00. Looking back at that moment, that $1000.00 was responsible for launching future low-budget films in the AFM. If my father hadn’t been the initial investor there would have been no way I would have had the confidence to get on the phone and ask 18 other individuals to put up $1000.00 each, including my sister Joan and most of those investors were high school and college friends of mine from Boston. That initial investment from my parents was responsible for launching KILL ZONE and eventually my next two films and when Dave left Spartanfilms and formed AIP he made over 35 films. None of this would have happened without my parents’ investment.
I raised all the funding and we started shooting the film in September of 1984. I hired Victor Alexander, a filmmaker with all his own camera equipment as the Director of Photography and eventually the Editor. Needless to say, we had a blast! It was a fun shoot and we made a lot of friends with the cast and crew. These friendships have lasted to this day. Once the film was completed, we took it around to all the distributors and Shapiro Entertainment gave us an ‘advance’ for the film which was totally unheard of at that time.
KILL ZONE premiered at the 1985 AFM American Film Market and it was a huge hit. In fact, by 1986 most of the filmmakers were making their own version of KILL ZONE. Our film changed the entire marketplace for the next ten to fifteen years at the AFM. Once Dave and Fritz left Spartanfilms, Ltd., they made over 35 films using the KILL ZONE formula. Dave was one of the most prolific directors in the video market all through the 80s and 90s.
I was all alone dealing with the income stream from my distributor Shapiro and like most distributors they don’t like to pay their filmmakers any of their profit back. I went up to their office every quarter to get a check from them and in the end, they paid me back my entire investment and then some. I managed to pay back all my investors a 180% return on their money. So here I was a first-time Producer that made back the original investment and 80% profit on my first producing effort.
That was one of the reasons why John Lebert decided to back me on my first producing and direction effort called FORGOTTEN HEROES. He figured if I went through this hell to pay back my investors, I would do the same for his investors.
It had been a long and tenuous journey from the time my father gave us that first $1000.00 and by 1990 I closed out the KILL ZONE partnership since I was the sole partner left. I took all the film elements and stored them in one of the biggest film vaults in Hollywood. The place looks like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark and that is where I left them to be forgotten forever.
Fast forward to 2022 (and I believe that for some unknown reason, Providence had a hand in this) I get a call from Steve Latshaw who is responsible for the resurrection and redistribution of this long-forgotten film.
Steve raised KILL ZONE from the dead.
Steve was a big fan of KILL ZONE and he worked for a dub house that was looking for action films to distribute from the 1980s. He took the original 35mm IP and transferred it to digital, remastering it in 4k Blu-ray. It was Steve’s company that John and I negotiated with since my company, MARINO FILM GROUP was now the owner of Spartanfilms, Ltd. The only film produced by that company was KILL ZONE. John and I made a deal with MVD for world distribution.
Never in my life would I have ever thought KILL ZONE would get a re-release. You can order the Blu-ray on Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Apple, etc, and there is a bonus section with two interviews with Jack Marino. One is with Steve Latshaw and the other is with Heath Holland on his own show “Cereal at Midnight.”
I would like to take this time to give a very special thanks to my good friend and fellow filmmaker/writer, Steve Latshaw, who called me out of the blue asking about KILL ZONE and asking what my plans were for it.
— David DeWitt
We like to promo items of friends of the blog from time to time and here is a great opportunity to buy a very collectible Spanish version of the 1938 Robin Hood poster featuring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland!
From Carola Nicethings on Facebook:
Description:
To raise money for our rescue dogs, cats and birds, and the high costs of their care and medical bills, we sell a variety of personal items, all good quality and reasonable prices.
This is a collectable vintage poster of the Spanish version of the 1938 movie Robin Hood with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland.
Measurements are 70 cm wide x 100 cm high, with a black metal frame, plexiglass front and sturdy cardboard backing.
To collect in Alhaurín El Grande, 1 km north-west of the polígono La Rosa main road entrance.
Also willing to send the poster by Registered Mail to you, without the frame and the poster folded.
Please see my other items, and I also sell a large variety of potted plants!
— David DeWitt
What did Errol Flynn, this man with a magnificent spirit and charisma give to Earth other than fun movies, a great smile, and a notable autobiography? Happiness and hope.
I became fully aware of the happiness and hope Errol gave the world from his movies and writings and short time on this earth, two years ago. It was July 2020, I had been to the hospital to have an MRI scan to understand why for a year in total I had been having occasional nocturnal seizures. Well, the scan revealed that at the age of 21 (for one month more as I turned 22 in August) I had a stage 2 glioma bordering on the motor region. I was not completely shocked as it was something I had suspected for a while, but actually having it confirmed sent chills down my spine, and tears down my cheeks. I was devastated. It had already been a hard year as it was, due to lockdown keeping everyone inside, and ridiculously not even allowing the safest and healthiest of activities like Golf which I was playing 3 times a week (4 if the conditions permitted) to be done. To add to that my beloved dog Molly (who had been sick and blind for a long time ) died, and during the night-time of that sad day I suffered a seizure; the one that made me finally arrange to have an MRI done as my Doctors had disgracefully not arranged for one.
But enough dreariness. How exactly did Errol Flynn help me get better? Was it his films? The energy he displayed in his films? His hilarious and exciting book? His funny face and grin which immediately upon looking at it you can’t help but laugh or smile? His philosophy? IT WAS ALL OF THESE! Ever since I first saw Errol Flynn in Captain Blood I was immediately captivated. Here was this grinning Aussie who despite the accent, made you believe he had just stepped into the Elizabethan times! In Robin Hood you believed he really did come from Sherwood forest! And in Dodge City that he really did go to the Wild Wild West! He looked and acted the part of every novel hero, from his physique and profile, down to his posture, demeanour and charm. But as I discovered from watching more of his films, and reading (multiple times) his “Wicked, wicked ways” (and many more books about him since then, including his novels) his real life story, the real Errol Flynn was far more interesting! This man had done everything! Gone to School in London and Australia, joined a “razor gang”, fought and conquered cannibal savages (and of course bedded one of their women), experienced what could of been an episode of Maverick (James Garner coincidentally wore Errol’s outfit from Silver River) in Hong Kong with Ting Ling O’Connor, worked as a seaman, before finally after many years and a tries at plays in London became an actor in Hollywood. And if you’ll forgive me for my crudeness; slept with the world’s most beautiful women. All before the age of 30. What a unique spirit.
I knew that I couldn’t let misfortune get me down. Far from making me give up on life and become a hermit, the diagnosis re-invigorated my desire to live. I started playing golf more regularly, skipping everyday, doing the heavy bag and weights every other day, in short:just doing things that made me happy and kept me healthy. Life was too short to live in despair and fear, you’re here today, try to live it good no matter how hard it may seem, life’s never as bad it seems. There’s always a way. I kept this philosophy I’d learnt from Errol up even when I had the surgery to removed as much of the tumour as was possible (thanks to my great Surgeon and the team at UCLH National Hospital For Neurology). The surgery had due to where it was located and the time it took (9 hours), left me temporarily paralysed on my right side. No more jumping and swinging like Robin Hood, skipping and heavy bag like Gentleman Jim, no! For the next month and a half I had to dig in deep, and use all of the hope that lied within me to get better. “I will see the world!” I will find a beautiful woman!” “I wont let this get in the way of my dreams!”, and like Errol Flynn in bed with a beautiful woman, or against the wild cannibals of New Guinea, I conquered my fear of not being able to use my right side fully again , and am doing well, despite suffering an infection from the first surgery, which meant having to have the bone flap that was removed and put in again during the surgery, removed again, and then 2 weeks ago having what is called “PEEK” put in the spot wear my bone used to be so that as I type this blog I have staples on my scalp. What an eventful year!
Errol Flynn once said in his letters “just one hour of time is far more important than money for time is life. Whenever you waste your time over printed words that neither enlighten nor amuse you, you are in a sense committing suicide.” Truer words were never spoken. This quote could be applied and altered to the use of social media, video games, tv, arguments, youtube etc and still be true. Life is short, the world is big, so why waste your time on negativity? Long live Errol Flynn and his amazing legacy.
A positive and negative
My tumour was found to benign in the biopsy, but the fact I had known I had a tumour was purely down to me arranging to have a MRI done. As I said previously my Doctors never even recommended one. That my tumour was thankfully found to be benign, made me think of those who ended up having the reverse, and of those, those who find out too late, or never at all. If you experience a seizure, or your head has been feeling different and the doctor tells you “it was just a panic attack”, or “don’t worry it’s just a head cold” do get an MRI scan just to be sure. It could literally save your life.
Please donate to these charities if you can www.thebraintumourcharity.org…
— Smordon Cluce
Today is the world premiere of Majorca Bound: Errol’s Flynnest Adventure by Lorenzo Gomez!
Congratulations, Lorenzo, all of your production crew and special guests and thanks for sharing with The Errol Flynn Blog …
Click image to watch!
— David DeWitt
The Mail Bag brings us great news about an independent documentary from Lorenzo Gomez about our dear old Mr. Errol Flynn in Mallorca, Spain …
Lorenzo says:
“On September 1st our “Errol’s Flynnesque adventure in Mallorca” amateur documentary will have its exclusive premiere featuring some of the last living witnesses to Errol flynn’s days in Spain!
Here is a photographic preview!”
We will publish a link to it, soon!
— David DeWitt
