What does a $500 reward have to do with Errol Flynn?
— Tim
White Rajah, Wrong Times
07
Mar
March 7, 1939
Hollywood Citizens News
Errol Flynn’s four assignments, in order of their production, will be The White Rajah, written by him; The Sea Hawk, The Knight and the Lady, with Bette Davis, and Don Juan. Each will be a $2,000,000 film.
…
Errol’s White Rajah contract with Warners:
Another swing and a miss in ’47”
— Tim
The Valley of Death
06
Mar
March 5, 1936
Harrison Carrol
LA Evening Herald Express
Movie location scouts have found a replica of Tennyson’s famous near Chatsworth, Cal., and the scene will shortly become one of Hollywood’s biggest sets. The picture, of course, is The Charge of the Light Brigade. Warner Bros had to find a valley floor big enough for the operations of 300 infantry and of 690 calvarymen. Tennyson’s poem had only 600 calvarymen in the charge, but studio research depts. are more accurate than poets and they have determined that 690 calvarymen actually stormed the Russian fortifications.
These fortifications, to be erected upon the top of the hills forming one wall of the valley, are to be on a grand scale. No miniatures for this battle scene, which, if you remember, finds the English the French and the Turks pitted against the armies of the czar.
Looking toward an English market for this Crimean War special, Warners is out to get a British cast to support Irish-born Errol Flynn in his second screen appearance. They have cabled Irving Asher to test the best available young actors in London for the role of Flynn’s younger brother.
…
“The Battle of Balaclava is one of the most famous battles of all time, despite being a comparatively minor engagement in the Crimean War. The futile heroics of the soldiers who fought there may have gone relatively unnoticed if not for a picture and a poem.”
“The battle itself is fraught with anecdotes and personalities that combine to make legend. The events of October 25th, 1854 evolve like the episodes of a Greek tragedy, with the fate of the soldiers hinging on the acts of a handful of characters.”
— Tim
Errol Flynn’s Room on the Queen Mary Mystery Continues!
06
Mar
Like many things with Flynn there is yet another mystery and more questions …
To whit: In about 2011 I contacted the Queen Mary concerning the cabin that Errol stayed in during his trip to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War and he was aboard ship with the erstwhile sinister Hermann F. Erben. Erben kept notes about his travels in a notebook and some of these notes were published in Josef Fegerl’s red covered book.
In the book, Erben notes that Errol stayed in M 38.
So I wrote to the QM and asked them if the room was still there. They replied that M38 was changed to M012 and still existed. When I visited the ship I went to look for the cabin and found it. I did not knock on the door, fearing somebody would be disturbed. Later, I found evidence that M38 was indeed changed to M012.
So what is the mystery?
Well, if you look closely you will see in that Erben wrote: M 38 not M38 … When I asked about the cabin location I asked in my email about M 38, too. With that space between the M and the 38 …
But the answer I got I think now was about cabin M38 and not as I have discovered in a different map: M038 … see in yellow on the left side of this map of M Deck.
Then I found this old map: if you look at the far right side below, you see that what is listed as M2 in yellow above was M038 (below) …
So, was Erben referring to M038 and leaving out the 0 when he wrote “Errol in M 38” ??? Did he put in a space between M and 38 to denote the number M038?
Here is where M038 is located now listed as M2 …
In 1997:
And M2 is up against the wall of the Mauritania Room on the Queen Mary. But, hold on … there is more! I found a video tour on YouTube of M Deck by Lake Nipissing and it showed the hallway leading to the M2 cabin in my maps. I left a comment explaining the mystery I was trying to solve and in a short time, Lake replied to my comment! 
Whoa! Not only did Lake go check things out, but created a short video showing the room as it is today (3-6-30) and there was a surprise.
Lake says: Since the door ventilation grille is covered over, this room was remodeled in 1999 and will have a drywall vs. original wood ceiling, the punkah louvers will not be functional, and the bathtub surround will now be tiled instead of the gray/white marble pattern Formica on wood. There is a conversion list on a Queen Mary website which can help: www.sterling.rmplc.co.uk/webdrive/mcabins.html…
Correct: Cunard M2 = Long Beach M038 . . . Cunard M38 = Long Beach M012
Both of these rooms are active, with the card reader door locks. They are facing the parking lot, though, and not the harbor.
Do we know for sure which room Errol was in? M38 or M 38 (M038) ???
Tis a mystery still …
Thanks, Lake … you are the best!
— David DeWitt
Morning After
05
Mar
March 4, 1939
Erskine Johnson
Behind the Makeup
Los Angeles Examiner
Morning after the Academy Awards banquet, Donald Crisp sent a telegram to Errol Flynn, vacationing in the South. “Dear Errol,” it read. “Last night the Academy Awards banquet was held. Your name was not mentioned.”
…
Deplorable that Flynn was not even nominated for his immortal portrayal of Robin Hood.
The nominees were:
Spencer Tracy, for Boys Town
Charles Boyer, for Algiers
James Cagney, for Angels with Dirty Faces
Robert Donat, for The Citadel
Leslie Howard, for Pygmalion
And the winner was:
Spencer Tracy, for Boys Town
Proper Evaluations of Flynn’s Greatness
The model of an action hero in 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood, the dashing star made the swordplay and wooing look so effortless that it’s easy to ignore the craft behind his derring-do. – Entertainment Weekly
He was the Tom Cruise of the 1930s, a global superstar whose natural charisma and box-office power put him at the tippytop of Hollywood — and he never won an Oscar. Unlike Cruise, Flynn was never even nominated, not for “Captain Blood,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade” or 1938’s still-dazzling “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” – Boston Herald
Unfortunately, at the time when Errol enjoyed his greatest success, the adventure film, as a genre, was not sufficiently appreciated and therefore [Errol’s] appearances therein were not as highly regarded as they [are now.] … [He] played his roles with unmatchable verve, conviction, and style. In doing so, he inherited the mantle of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., who was my favorite film star at the age of 9 and whose ‘The Black Pirate’ left an indelible impression on me. No one since Errol has worn that mantle; it is buried with him. – Lady Marian Fitzwater
— Tim
Uncommonly Quiet
03
Mar
March 2, 1942
Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express
Are Warners trying to keep Errol Flynn under wraps these days? His set is usually closed to newspaper people and the studio publicity department is uncommonly quiet about the star.
…
This article was written during filming of Desperate Journey, at a time which Errol was said to be suffering from tuberculosis, dropping to 165-pounds at one point.
— Tim
Tid Bits, March 18, 1955 & Avenita Hotel, Barcelona …
02
Mar
Special Thanks to Karl Holmberg …
— David DeWitt
Stuntmen, stand-ins and stooges VII
02
Mar
Dear fellow Flynn fans,
the most gentlemanly stuntman of Errol was Patrick “Paddy” Crean. He doubled him in “The Master of Ballantrae” and “Against all flags”. An accomplished actor in his own right later in life with roles in “War and Peace” alongside Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn and in “The naked Maya” with Ava Gardner, he is mostly remembered for his superb swordmanship. Until today a flagship workshop called “the Paddy Crean” is held in his honour in Canada. He reminisced about about Flynn fondly in his hard to find autobiography “More Champagne Darling” and gives quite an insight into the ill fated adventure (film) “The Story of William Tell”, where he was to appear as partisan pesant. The song in the end of the clip is most pleasant for this class act choreographer naming both our Hollywood hero as well as this class act irish paesano.
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
In a State of Chaos
02
Mar
As quoted in My Wicked, Wicked Ways
March 1, 1949
Sheila Graham
New York Journal-American
Errol Flynn is far from being the happiest man in the world at this point. Not only is his domestic life in a state of chaos, but he has to make a western as his next movie. Errol is tired of shooting it up in the saddle. He doesn’t want to be a rich man’s Roy Rogers.
1949 – In the State of Chaos
1950 – In the State of Montana
— Tim
