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Archive for the ‘Young Errol Flynn’ Category

A PNG BIO

15 Jul

A primer on Flynn’s time and adventures in Papua New Guinea, quoting “Malum Nalu”.

Photo of girl believed to be Tuperselai provided by EFB Author, Tina. Thank you, Tina.

…….

Papua New Guinea’s rich and colorful history is littered with the names of likewise gaudy characters that have carved a niche for themselves.

Few, however, have made more of an impact than the flamboyant and swashbuckling Errol Flynn.

With the discovery of very good paying gold in 1926 at Edie Creek above Wau – six days walk from Salamaua – a gold rush of massive proportions started, not only from Australia but from beyond.

With the major discovery of gold came the last two categories of what the White population of New Guinea was divided into: Missionaries, Moneymakers, and Misfits or Fools, Freaks, and Failures.

Not least among the Misfits was the one who became a Hollywood star – Errol Flynn. And none, probably, has done more to promote PNG than this lovable rogue who went on to become the world’s top sex symbol.

The superb scenery, glorious hills and harbours, white beaches, and shady copra plantations are still today as Flynn describes them in his famous autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways.

Places like Salamaua, Wau, Bulolo, Lae, Finschhafen, Port Moresby, Laloki, Rabaul, Kavieng, Madang, and the Sepik River have become famous because of My Wicked, Wicked Ways.

His book remains a bestseller to this day and, in places like Salamaua or Wau – just to name two – people still talk about him.”Flynn used to drink here,”they’ll tell you in Salamaua, or, “this is where he went mining for gold”, they’ll reminisce in Wau.

Legendary Australian patrol officer, JK McCarthy, recalls in his book, Patrol Into Yesterday, how Flynn stepped in once to protect a small man from a bully: “It was done in the most dramatic style and all of us should have foreseen that he had a movie career ahead of him. There was the noisy bar, the crowd of onlookers, the challenge and the hero knocking the loud-mouthed one cold, right on cue.”

The true-life story of movie superstar Errol Flynn was more dramatic and incredible than even the wildest of his many Hollywood-starring roles.

Panoramic portrayals of his amazing past have brought the true legend of Flynn explosively to life, blowing the lid off his rabble-rousing time in the gutters of Sydney, and his death-defying escapades searching for gold in the jungles of New Guinea.

Flynn was simply the sexiest, most charismatic star of the Golden Era of Hollywood.

The epitome of a lusty, virile hero, Flynn turned the World into his stage as millions fell for his wicked, wicked ways.

Superstar and legend, Errol Flynn was Hollywood’s symbol of male virility during the Golden Era of moviemaking.

He was adored by fans worldwide, admired by millions, despised by many.

Flynn was the quintessence of the swashbuckling hero, but his on-screen exploits were pale echoes of his real life adventures.

Flynn’s prowess with women was so infamous that the expression “In like Flynn” became a common phrase used to describe the ease with which a man might conquer a woman.

As an actor, Flynn built the foundation for characters later elaborated by Mel Gibson, Arnold Schwarznegger, Harrison Ford, and Kevin Costner.

He died at age 50 of a heart attack, having had a good run in Hollywood with 53 films – some for Jack Warner, others contracted out to MGM – across from great female players such as Olivia De Haviland, Maureen O’Hara, Bette Davis, Greer Garson and others.

Errol Flynn was born Errol Leslie Thompson Flynn on June 20, 1909 in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.His parents were Professor Theodore Thompson Flynn and Lily Mary Young.

Professor Flynn was a well-known marine biologist and zoologist who later went on to receive an MBE for his work at Queens University, Belfast. Errol also was a direct descendant – on his mothers’ side – of Midshipman Young from the infamous HMS Bounty Mutiny of 1789.

The 18-year-old Errol Flynn arrived in New Guinea in October 1927 to make his fortune on the newly discovered goldfields at Edie Creek, Wau.

From his arrival he tried unsuccessfully to bluff himself into money as a cadet patrol officer, gold prospector, slave recruiter, dynamiter of fish, trapper of birds, manager of coconut and tobacco plantations, air cargo clerk, copra trader, charter boat captain, pearl diver and diamond smuggler.

He was also a prolific writer and contributed regularly to Australian newspapers and magazines with absorbing tales about the untamed jungles of New Guinea.

Flynn soon discovered that the Australian government had a severe shortage of patrol officers, and he hoped to bluff his way through in Rabaul, but this colonial career was short-lived when his background was discovered.

He moved restlessly from one job to another, acquiring many different skills but no great competence.

Hoping to get rich fast, he lived by his wits and ran up many debts.

In Rabaul, although considered a likeable and capable young man, his reputation for roguery quickly spread and he ceased to be with the Administration.

His best memory of Rabaul was of “a wonderful saloon where you encountered everything the world could yield up – miners, recruiters, con men, thieves, beachcombers, prospectors – cubicles both downstairs and upstairs, several phonographs playing, cards.”

Long after Flynn had left he was remembered around Rabaul, mostly for the unpaid bills he left behind.

Even after he became famous as a film star, he never paid any of those bills. If people wrote asking him to pay, he would send them autographed photographs of himself, saying these were worth much more than what he owed them.

The story is told of the famous occasion when a film of Flynn’s was showing in Rabaul, and at the end of the credits, a dentist to whom Flynn owned a large account jumped up and shouted: “And teeth by Eric Wein.”

In 1928, with money from his work on a coconut plantation and a loan from a shipping company in Sydney, Flynn bought a schooner and took an American film company to make a documentary about headhunters on the Sepik River.

He recalls: “The last place in the world I wanted to go was the Sepik River, a human graveyard. I cruised to the north-east coast, where the red, muddy Sepik River flowed into the sea.

“We moved into the broad stream, running against a strong current.

“The Sepik is a monster waterway 600 miles long.

“No white man has been up the river more than 200 or 300 miles and the nature of the river or the land beyond that was practically unknown and remains little known to this very day.

“The waterway was heavily populated with mosquitoes, kanakas, and pukpuks (crocodiles).

“As we traveled the garamuts, tomtoms made of crocodile skins, kept up a steady communication: ‘Outsiders, big magic on the water, beware’.

“When we came in close to shore and tried to get film of the natives, we got arrows instead, real ones, and poisoned.

“In 1929, Flynn sailed from the offshore islands to Salamaua, to fulfill his original ambition.

He hired eight men, bought marching gear and gold-digging equipment, and set out for the goldfields at Edie Creek.

The tough march from Salamaua to Wau – through a region filled with blackwater fever and poisoned arrows – tested men’s limitations.

The rigorous walk between Salamaua and Wau took up to a week, Flynn writing of how the gold fields had to be approached from Salamaua by 10 days’smarch through leech-infested jungle, in constant fear of ambush, and at night wondering ‘whether that crawly sound you heard a few feet away might be a snake, a cassowary or maybe only a wild boar razorback…I have seen Central Africa, but it was never anything like the jungle of New Guinea’.

At Edie Creek, temperatures were high during the day and fell steeply at night.

There was an epidemic of dysentery and malaria, with no trained doctors to attend to the sick.

His men left, and Flynn quickly realised that, “I had neither the provisions, nor the money, nor the necessary men to work a claim properly. The competition with other prospectors who were better set up was too much”.

He lost everything he owned and was forced to take a job as manager of a tobacco plantation in Laloki, near Port Moresby.

Six months later, Jack Hides, a flamboyant patrol officer and old Papua hand, turned up at Flynn’s place and noted in his diary that Flynn was doing a creditable job.

Flynn had criticised the Australian administration in a letter to his father in Tasmania.

Writing to The Bulletin soon after his arrival, he protested against a government policy that affected his own plantation, the high import taxes imposed on tobacco: “Papua is one of the natural homes of the tobacco plant, and, as Papua is part of the Commonwealth and is in receipt of a yearly subsidy of £40,000 from the federal government, the obvious market for its tobacco is Australia. But the market is closed by a prohibitive tariff.”

At Laloki, the man who was to become the world’s top sex symbol, wrote about his affair with Tuperselai, a beautiful Papuan girl: “We let ourselves be carried down by the current of the stream and, on the shores, in a secluded nook of shade, at last we made love.

“I can only say that I don’t know when again my heart pounded so.

“I was less alone and soft-aired Laloki River is one of my most precious, poetic memories.”

Flynn later observed that, “If you spend more than five years in New Guinea you were done for, you’d never be able to get out, your energy would be gone, and you’d rot there like an aged palm”.

In April 1933, he sold his property and suddenly left the island with some smuggled diamonds and a case of malaria that would plague him for the rest of his life.

During his years in New Guinea, from the age of 18 to 24, Flynn came to maturity and formed his adult personality. New Guinea brought out the worst and the best in him.

He was willing to try anything, but wouldn’t work at anything for very long.

He said, “There is no thrill like making a dishonest buck” and always expected others to support him when he had no money of his own.

He lived by his wits, bluffed his way through crises, and used his fists when he had to.

One of Errol Flynn’s greatest loves was writing. Apart from his autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways, he wrote two semi-autobiographical novels Beam Ends and Showdown and in addition wrote articles for the Sydney Bulletin whilst in PNG under the pen-name “Laloki.”

Errol Flynn loved many women, but he is said to have once confided to a close friend that two of his greatest loves were New Guinea, and writing.

— Tim

 

In Like Flynn Will Soon Be Out

08 Jul

“In Like Flynn will be released later this year through Umbrella (Films)”

“[It] will be in cinemas by October 2018 in Australia.”

“It’s a different film and kinda unlike anything that’s come out of Australia.”

— Tim

 

Opening Night – In Like Flynn!

27 May

“OPENING NIGHT FILM & PARTY (IN LIKE FLYNN) 29 June 6.30pm”

@ The Royal Open Air Theater, in Winton, Queensland, Australia

The Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival in ­Winton, central-west Queensland, from June 29-July 7.

www.outbackqueensland.com…

“The main venue is the Royal Open Air Theatre (pictured), celebrating its 100th birthday and the pride of a town that claims Waltzing Matilda and Qantas among its creations.”


“Kicking off the program will be In Like Flynn, a new film by Russell Mulcahy (Razorback, Highlander) about Errol Flynn’s adventures in Australia before he left for Hollywood in the 1930s and became a movie swashbuckler. Thomas ­Cocquerel stars as Flynn.” ­

“The Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival, Winton, Queensland.

9 days / 30 films / A zillion stars”

“Winton’s Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival is a film festival like no other. It celebrates Australian film and culture under the stars of Winton in Outback Queensland. The Festival combines an incomparable program of classic and contemporary Australian films with special events, conversations and masterclasses with film makers, directors, actors and actresses, kids club and special events.

Join the stars on the red carpet for the Opening Night, or tour to the sites where major feature films were made.”

— Tim

 

Any Port in a Story?

13 Feb

Great story, but did Errol ever really visit Port Adelaide, as he says he did in Beams End?

www.adelaidereview.com…

Or was he Fibbin’ Like Flynn?

books.google.com…

How it looked in the Twenties:

— Tim

 

Beginning with Bettongs

29 Nov

From very early on, Errol exhibited an intense interest and unique talent for entrepreneurial adventure. Inspired by his father, this often involved scientific exploration and experimentation. Cruise of the Zaca is an eminent example.

But when and where did young Errol first profitably demonstrate this profound talent and interest? Evidence indicates it was in connection to Professor Flynn’s research into the reproductive biology of Tasmanian bettings. In fact, Errol essentially states so in My Wicked, Wicked Ways:

“When school finished, I raced home to be at his side, to hurry out into the back yard, where we had cages of specimens of rare animals… Through Father’s activity I made my first venture into commerce. He bought all the kangaroo rats [bettongs] he could get hold of for Hobart University. I learned to set box traps in the hills of near-by Mount Wellington. He paid a shilling a head.”

Putting Errol’s bettongs to exceptionally good use, Professor Flynn published a landmark paper in 1930 on the reproduction of the Tasmanian bettong.

Here is a rare nocturnal photo of the hard-to-catch, truffle-hunting Tasmanian bettong in the act of night-jumping.

And here is a spectacular view from Mt. Wellingon of the hills of Hobart where pre-teen Errol trapped bettongs for his father’s pioneering research into marsupials.

— Tim

 

Kissing the Coloured Virgin

04 Nov

“Meet the man who knew and drew Picasso in Paris, Einstein and Churchill in London, and even lived with Errol Flynn in Sydney”

“Kerwin Maegraith, caricaturist, journalist and true Aussie larrikin, encountered the most famous people of his time from the 1920’s to the Sixties.”

www.adelaidenow.com…

“Well, one night Errol came home drunk. The old girl (the landlady) had lit the plaster statue of the Virgin with a candle at its foot. The statue was about five feet high and coloured. A big bunch of flowers stood at the foot of the image and Errol, thinking it was just another pretty girl, made a lunge. Both he and the statue, in a thousand bits, hurled down two flights of stairs. The enraged landlady, awoken from her slumber, tossed Mr. Flynn and his belongings right out on the footpath. But with his winning ways, Errol was back next morning and forgiven. He was about 17 or 18 at this time, as wild a young man as Sydney ever saw.”

— Tim

 

The Sartorial Flynn

21 Oct

Inspired by the keen observations of timerider – and with his kindly “Carry on, Old Boy” blessing – I hereby start a post for all to post your all time favorite images of Errol at his sartorial best, most fun, interesting, unique, and/or ahead of his time. I expect all of us will have multiple, even numerous favorites.

As timerider would say, “Carry On”! … In that spirit and fashion, I post my first:

— Tim

 

A Two Quid Quiz

14 Aug

What’s the Flynnian connection?

— Tim

 

It’s a Wrap!

04 Jun

www.goldcoastbulletin.com…

— Tim

 

“In the wake of the bounty” 1933

13 Jan

From TROVE Digitised Newspapers, National Library of Australia

Brisbane Courier Mail        23/03/1932

 

Mr Charles Chauvel who produced “The Moth of Moonbi” and “Greenhide,” in Queensland some year ago, is to produce a series of films for Expeditionary Films Ltd., a Sydney company. Mr Chauvel, accompanied by his wife Elsa, and a camera staff, will travel far from the beaten track in search of cinema material. Adventure and romance are to predominate in the films, to be produced by this company.

Besides a feature film, Mr. Chauvel will make a series of historical and travel films.  These will be recorded with German and French dialogue as well, as English.   Mr Chauvel will commence production next month at the studio of Australasian Films, Bondi, Sydney.

 

 

Sydney Morning Herald        23/08/1932

 

MUTINY OF THE BOUNTY –  Reconstructed for Films.   Mr. Charles Chauvel returned to Sydney on

Saturday, after travelling 15,000 miles in little known parts of the Pacific Ocean, to make a film depicting the mutiny of the Bounty for Expeditionary Films, Ltd., an Australian company.  Every effort has been made to produce the film historically, and present a faithful picture of the wanderings of the mutineers, before they reached Pitcairn Island, where they burned the Bounty,

 

And Lieutenant Bligh’s epic voyage of 4000 miles, in an open boat to Batavia, after he had been cast adrift with l8 loyal members of his crew.  Mr. Chauvel followed the route of the Bounty and saw the remains of the ship lying in the clear water at Pitcairn Island.  Native dances were filmed at Tahiti, where the mutineers stayed. Natives had to be specially chosen, as knowledge of primitive dances Is rapidly dying out.

Members of the party had an unpleasant experience at Pitcairn Island. They were Inspecting the coast in an open boat, when the engine failed, and they were blown out to sea.  They managed to make repairs just before sunset, and made a dangerous return to the Island through the surf, which is always heavy.

Mr. Chauvel said that his company believed that Australian history was too much neglected, and attempts would be made to fill in the gaps.  Arrangements have been made for copies of the film to be prepared with Spanish and German comment.

 

Sydney Morning Herald     15/03/1933

EXPEDITIONARY FILMS LTD.  “BOUNTY” PICTURE LAUNCHED !!

 

To-day, at the Prince Edward Theatre, the film, “In the Wake of the Bounty,”  which Mr. Charles Chauvel produced recently, with Tahiti and Pitcairn Islands as the principal backgrounds, will be given its first public screenings.

At the Australia Hotel yesterday, the directors of Expeditionary Films Ltd., under whose auspices Mr. Chauvel has made the film, entertained members of the Press and the motion picture Industry at luncheon.

Mr. S. Utz (Chairman of Expeditionary Films, Ltd.) presided.  COL. M. P. Bruxner, who is a member of the company, outlined some of the difficulties which Mr. Chauvel had had to face In making the film;  difficulties of transport; difficulties of organisation; and, finally, difficulties of censorship. The members of the company, being amateurs in the film business, had been amazed, and then appalled, at the amount of obstinacy and pugnacity which had to be displayed, before a film finally reached its public.

 

Mr. C. Brunsdon Fletcher spoke of the essential soundness and solidarity of the British Empire, in a world where every other nation was reeling beneath the shock of disaster (the depression).  After all, it was human character, as expressed in national outlook, which remained the predominating factor.  The producers of this film had done something decisive and valuable to make their country known elsewhere.

Mr. Hec C. MacIntyre (Managing Director of Universal Films – Aust) said that his Company considered it was only doing Its duty in trying to establish Australian films abroad. The launching of the Australian product In England, was no easy matter, either.  The English exhibitor was conservative. He preferred to concentrate on English and American productions.  Some of the earlier Australian films had been extraordinarily difficult to market. In Mr. Chauvel’s picture, however, he was confident that he had something to appeal to the tastes of the whole world.

Mr. H. Saxton (Secretary of Expeditionary Films) also spoke.

 

The West Australian        1 December, 1933

 

IN THE WAKE OFfHE BOUNTY              New Australian Production.

 

Travelogues and dramas have drenched the screen- with the- spray of South Sea beaches until the film-goer imagines that he knows every angle from which a palm can be photographed. Then an Australian, Mr. Charles Chauvel,. makes ‘In the Wake of the Bounty,’ and presents the Pacific under a strange and cloudy beauty, such as has not been filmed.  Mr. Chauvel, however, is more concerned with the savage languor of the tropics; he masses the brilliance of wild dances and flowers to show the pathetic contrast between the islands, which link that famous mutiny, Tahiti and Pitcairn, writes the Film Editor of the Sydney ‘Sun.’

Thus that first part of the. film is a glamorous reconstruction of history, with young Errol Flynn playing the part of Fletcher Christian – Mayne Lynton that of Bligh, and Victor Gouriet that of the blind fiddler, who tells the tale.  The scenes aboard ship are effectively done; then, by filming the journey made down the

Pacific by the Chauvels themselves, Pitcairn comes into view and the title of the picture falls into its proper pace.

 

The latter sequences of the film admirably bear out the intention of the producers (Expeditionary Films, Ltd.) to chart the unknown tracts of the world.  Pitcairn, of which the serious and religious people, appalling surf and precipices, prim houses and vegetable patches, are shown in absorbing detail, is one of those places which, as the steamer route moves farther out, will be less frequently visited.

Drama as well as travel has been caught by the film; human romances, swift tragedies, interludes as exciting as any fiction, all enthral the audience.

‘In the Wake of. the Bounty’ will be shown at the Theatre Royal in December, with ‘Leave it to Me’ (Gene Gerrard).

 

“In the wake of the Bounty” 1933 (24)

 

Australian Screen Site

Errol Flynn

Photo of Errol Flynn 1933

As a cast member:   Errol Flynn as Fletcher Christian 1933

In the Wake of the Bounty (1933)

This list shows all the titles currently on australianscreen , that include Errol Flynn in a principal role.  It is not a comprehensive screen-o-graphy.

Singleton Argus           30/01/1933

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW SOUTH SEAS FILM – CENSOR OBJECTS TO DANCE SCENES.

– SUPERVISED BY CLERGYMAN.

 

The South Seas film “In the Wake of the Bounty,”  which the Commonwealth Censor  (Mr Creswell O’Reilly) insists must be submitted for certain cuts, will be placed before the Censorship Appeal Board by the’ producer, Mr Charles Chauvel who said that the dance scenes to which Mr. O;Reilly had objected, had been supervised in the making, by a Methodist clergyman.

 

Sydney Morning Herald       11/02/1933

 

Top of Form

THE “BOUNTY” FILM.                         Appeal to Minister for Customs.

 

Mr. Charles Chauvel, who directed “In the Wake of the Bounty,” staled last night that the Censorship Appeal Board had considered the film, and announced its decision.  When the sections of the picture photographed in Tahiti came before the Commonwealth Film Censor (Mr. O’Reilly) recently. ? he ordered three excisions before the film could be publicly screened within Australia.  He also ordered that a cut should be made In the section photographed within the Commonwealth, before the completed film could be exported lo other countries.  The Appeal Board passed every part of the production except

one set of incidents which relate to a native dance.

Mr. Chauvel declares that he and his Board ol Directors intend to carry their case from the Appeal Board to the Minister for Customs.  They feel, he says, that their film has been unfairly chosen  for attack, while foreign productions embodying the same type of incident, have been allowed admission to this country, without comment.

If the Minister fails to reverse the decision of the Appeal Board”, he goes on, “In the Wake of the Bounty” will not be screened in Australia.  Its’ owners will simply send it abroad, and concentrate on the oversea market  The scenes of the native dance are the pivot of the whole production.  If they are deleted, the film will be spoilt.”

 

National Screen Archives

 

Title No: 496
Title: IN THE WAKE OF THE BOUNTY : ORIGINAL RELEASE.    Country of Origin:  Australia
Production Date: 1932    Media: Film
Release Date: 15 March 1933    Duration:   01:04:00
Produced as: Feature Film    Category: DramaCast:    Marie Rosenfeld, Errol Flynn, Mayne Linton
Cinematographer/Director:  Tasman Higgins

Director:    Charles Chauvel

Company:  Expeditionary Films

Summary:  Retells the story of the mutiny led by Fletcher Christian in 1789 against William Bligh, depicting the fate of the mutineers on Tahiti and Pitcairn. — General notes: Shot on location and in Sydney. The wreckage in the film portrayed as that of ‘The Bounty’ is in fact that of ‘The Cornwallis’, which was wrecked in 1875. — Source:   Queensland Maritime Museum.

In 1935, M.G.M. bought American rights to the film and re-edited it to form two short travelogues, ‘Pitcairn Island Today’ (1935) and ‘Primitive Pitcairn’ (1936). These were used as promotional aids for the studio’s own production of ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’.

Source: Australian Film 1900-1977, Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper.

 

 

— Isabel Australis