Errol Flynn Movies

 

It just started to snow.  We are expecting up to ten inches of snow.

I decided to write my daily post.  I had a few idea of what to write about.  But, in surfing about the television for something as background to write to, I noticed one of my favorite movies was on, Captain Blood, starring Errol Flynn, probably my favorite actor.  I had to watch it, again, and knew I would be writing about.

My favorite films of Errol Flynn’s was four of them he made in the 1930s and early 1940s.

• Captain Blood (1935)
• The Prince and the Pauper (1937)
• The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
• The Sea Hawk (1940)
• They Died with their Boots On (1941)
• Gentleman Jim (1942)
• The Adventures of Don Juan (1948)

All were in black and white.  Olivia de Havilland co-starred with Flynn in three of them:  Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and They Died with their Boots On.  Basil Rathbone was his foe in The Adventures of Robin Hood and Captain Blood.  Rathbone died at the point of Flynn’s sword in both those movies.  Rafael Sabatini wrote the novels, The Sea Hawk and The Odyssey of Captain Blood, on which two of the films were made.  Alan Hale was a co-star in every movie I have listed expect They Died with their Boots On.  The studio for all these films were Warner.  Michael Curtiz directed four of them and Raoul Walsh directed two. 

I probably could have included The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936 with de Havilland and Curtiz) except I do not recall having seen it.  I have to remedy that situation soon.

 

Robin Hood, Captain Blood, and The Sea Hawk have been my favorites since I first saw them probably in my teens.  I have watched each of them every time I notice that they are on.  I have recorded all three.  I saw The Prince and the Pauper and Gentleman Jim even before the other three and, while I liked them, I liked them a bit less than the first three.  I came to see They Died with their Boots On and The Adventures of Don Juan in the past ten years.  I am watching them every time I notice they are on, though I have not recorded either.  I know the balance of history and Hollywood in They Died with their Boots On might have been a bit too much Hollywood.  But, because of this, his portrayal of General George Armstrong Custer was all the more entertaining and engaging for it.

Why do I like Flynn so much?  He had a great screen presence.  He was handsome, dashing, athletic, swashbuckling, heroic, and romantic.  He was all of this in a charismatic way.  I will admit, I would have loved to have been just like this.  Certainly, the list of people that might call me athletic, swashbuckling, dashing, heroic, and charismatic is probably very close to zero. 

Why do I like these films?  Well, I like them pretty much for the reasons I like Errol Flynn.  The films are swashbuckling and heroic.  They are good stories in which the good guy mostly wins (except of course for They Died with their Boots On). 

I have always wanted read the two seafaring books of Raphael Sabatini.  They are available on Amazon.  He wrote three novels about Captain Blood.  I should read one of them and see they are as engaging as I find the film. 

The book I did read was Errol Flynn’s biography, My Wicked Wicked Ways.  In real life he was flawed in contrast to the characters he played in the movies I like. He was a womanizing, hard drinking, hedonist.  He chain smoked.  He burned out and died at the age of 50 of a heart attack.  An autopsy showed he had severe cirrhosis of the liver as well which might have contributed to the heart attack.   

He was married four times and had four children.  He had numerous affairs with Hollywood stars.  In his mansion, he had peepholes and two-way mirrors where he could voyeuristically spy on his guests.   In 1942, two seventeen-year-old girls accused him of statutory rape.  He was acquitted but his image, as defined in his popular films, was never the same. 

It is good to have both perspectives:  his screen persona and his personal life.

After Captain Blood ended, I saw another channel was showing the first three Rambo movies back-to-back.  I like Sylvester Stallone, but he is no Errol Flynn.