IT WAS EIGHTY YEARS AGO TODAY
March 16, 1937, in the Los Angeles Evening Herald Express
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Green Light Hero Does His Cooking Best Outside
In the opinion of Errol Flynn, cooking is best in the great open spaces.
Flynn, the Irish actor, author, world-traveler and soldier-of-fortune now starring in the Cosmopolitan production of Green Light, which closes tonight at Warners’ Hollywood and Downtown, is a great admirer of culinary delicacies.
“You can’t do food real justice,” he contends “unless it’s cooked in the open. I’d trade the finest kitchen range anytime for a small plot under the trees by an open stream.”
Flynn learned the art of cookery beside roaring bonfires. His tutors were natives of New Guinea, Australia, and the uncharted islands in the South Seas.
He discovered that they know more about cooking and seasoning than most of the civilized races of the earth.
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Here’s Errol shopping on Catalina for one of his famous pig-on-a-spit backyard roasts:
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?
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.
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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.
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.
Great article on Graham Greene’s portrait of Havana, coincidental to Errol’s time and adventures there in the late 50’s.
Did Flynn know Graham Greene? Anyone know? (PW? This is America calling) … I imagine so, being that Greene was such a very respected and successful British writer, and avid traveller, who, I believe, spent significant time in Jamaica as well as Cuba during Errol’s years on both islands. Plus, he, like Our Man Flynn, was a noted supporter of early Fidel.
Not fareth from Ye Little Wood hood, on Calle Oche, featuring the old culture of Errol & Sepy’s old Cuban stomping grounds.
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Across the calle, a restaurante featuring a painting of La Bodeguita del Medio, the epicenter of Errol & Sepy’s pre-Castro drinking grounds .
For the record, I was unable to get updated photos of Sepy’s fascinating “charging bull” manse because of new neighbors, fencing and security, but I did get to see most of it from a distance of about only twenty yards, and, quite surprisingly, it appears nearly exactly how it did on my last visit, with, as far as I could see, apparently little or no further construction in over two years!
