Errol Flynn

[charliechaplinfan]

I watched Montana for the first time today, if I believed what I read years ago, Flynn was washed up by this time, past his best and worth watching only for nostalgia. It's a good job I stopped believing this kind of writing and started to watch for myself, I really liked Montana, a Western with Flynn and Alexis Smith. Flynn's so at home in the saddle and Alexis Smith, she's more than a match for him, wasp waisted and glorious red hair, I'd never seen her in colour before, it does her justice, now why did Charles Boyer give her up in The Constant Nymph for Joan Fontaine? it's surely not the same girl? I love the song they sang together and Flynn himself, was not at all dissipated by this time but still as lean and attractive as always.

I agree about assumptions in film writing although the Walsh article has made me realise that it's been such a long time since I watched Gentleman Jim. Walsh was a director well suited to Flynn, perhaps he understood more than others the complex man that was Errol Flynn.

[RedRiver]

Walsh was a director well suited to Flynn

Very much so. Like Flynn and Curtiz, they did fine work together.

[JackFavell]

I'm sorry if I was harsh on the article, but lately I've been getting irritable with writing that starts out as an examination of an actor or director but then suddenly jumps to a conclusion I simply can't follow from the evidence presented. Maybe I'm ornery or something but I am starting to think for myself with such movie criticism, if someone like Tag Gallagher says it well that's one thing, but no one writing now seems to have the gravitas or the knowledge to really ground their arguments properly. Or maybe I'm just spoiled by reading some of the greatest writers of all time, right here at the SSO.

I have never seen Montana, its time to watch it I guess. Alexis Smith is growing on me, I really am starting to like her a lot.

I am also finding as I age that I am far more forgiving of my stars. I know I used to shy away from what I thought of as the sadness of seeing a star beyond his prime or in a genre they aren't known for, but lately I'm finding very worthwhile movies from folks like Flynn who did a whole slew of movies I've never seen before. I think the critics do us a disservice by cutting someone for the way they age. For instance, I saw Never Say Goodbye the other day, and I just loved it! It was charming, and Errol was just great as "uncle Phil". He had good chemistry with Eleanor Parker and Forrest Tucker. Sometimes you see someone next to Tucker and think "he's better looking than the star" but not in this case. Flynn was just super funny, trying to win back Parker while masquerading as their daughter's uncle.

[MissGoddess]

I think Never Say Goodbye is very charming!

I haven't read the Walsh article yet so am holding off on commenting about your excellent post, Wendy. I do know what you mean about writing that states a premise then fails to back it up. I also know I find this is something I've yet to learn to do well myself, and I'm inexperienced---it is something you're supposed to learn when your going to school or as you mature as a writer I imagine. I expect people who's writing is published to have already learned how to develop their ideas and conclusions properly, but it seems now especially with the internet, that anything can get by editors...if editors even "edit" anymore.

[charliechaplinfan]

I watch some of Flynn's later films when I was younger and even though I was looking at him through the eyes of a 18 year old, I still enjoyed the movies and thought he looked good. There's a slew of movies I've enjoyed from actors and directors past their prime, some critics or biographers have to present a movie stars life as achieving fame, maintaining fame and then going into that inevitable decline which is age but they shouldn't write off those movies they still have the same people who shone with the same talent. I'm finding them a treasure trove of movies I hadn't considered. Montana was made in 1950 but I thought it was much earlier, I've got Rocky Mountain to watch too. And I enjoyed Never Say Goodbye, not only was Flynn a more than capable actor, he was witty and adept at comedy to boot.

I don't think you're ornery at all about film writing, we've just got more discerning, probably due to the wealth of authors and contributors that we have here.

[JackFavell]

I certainly can't write and follow any of the rules I am making for these people! But again, as you say, I feel that they are published, so they must know what they are talking about!

And yes, Alison, I'm getting bored with the automatic denouement in biographies. That's why the discussion of Dana Andrews was so refreshing. I like an author who doesn't buy into the standard arc of an entire career.

I just get frustrated with the math of some of these newer articles or books:

Flynn was talked about in scandal columns + Flynn's Walsh movies are making fun of that image + Walsh directed Flynn as an unchanging, but endearing force = because his image was played with, Flynn was a bad or weak actor?????

It doesn't compute for me. I'm not even sure I believe that Walsh depicted Flynn as unchanging. There's that assumption made, thrown in without basis. And then again the assumption that Flynn was weaker at acting than Cagney. I'm not saying that Cagney wasn't a masterful actor, or that Flynn's personal life didn't get in his way, but it's all just too simplistic, and who cares? One statement leads to another only there's a gap in the logic. The Cagney comparison, It's as if it didn't even belong in this article. Although I appreciated the point made, I just don't see how you can come to those conclusions. Cagney was not Flynn. He made 4 movies with Walsh, over 14 years, all of which had dynamite scripts, ones that were worked over to create something beautiful out of. Flynn worked with Walsh nonstop over 6 pr 8 years, I think the author says, but he never mentions the less than stellar scripts for most of that time. Walsh's biggest problem was that he wouldn't fight for better scripts, or take the time to have them reworked properly. It's his major downfall as a director. He might change scenes off the cuff, or add his own brand of humor or pathos to a story, but he didn't really spend a huge amount of time on it. So to conclude that Flynn was no Cagney, acting wise, is just a moot point, and not really a conclusion I can stand behind. Flynn was rooked at every possible turning point, as far as I know, and Cagney was very much in control by the time he worked wth Walsh.

OK, sorry! Off the soapbox.

I haven't seen Rocky Mountain either, I also want to try Silver River. Because he was so active, in mind and body, he fits in some of these westerns better than you'd think. I happily throw away any pre-conceived notions about his Australian accent to watch him in these films. I simply don't care.

I just loved Never Say Goodbye, Eleanor Parker is starting to be a great favorite for me, she pretty much can do no wrong. I just can't believe how beautiful she is, and yet be such an accomplished actress. Flynn cracked me up completely, he's so on it in this movie. for me its one of his best roles. I loved how sneaky he was, how conceited, and yet you still love him and root for him. He falls down, he does everything required for this movie. It's by far the funniest of the returning vet movies, most of which starred Ronald Reagan, I think. I really enjoyed every minute of it.

[MissGoddess]

Cagney compared to Flynn? Talk about apples and oranges. Just because they both worked with Walsh? That would be like comparing Henry Fonda and John Wayne, both of whom worked for Ford, and finding one or the other deficient just because they're so different.

It sounds like the writer let his own feelings get in the way, or has the usual "conceit" that an "actor" cannot be appreciated on his own merits and only if he's "serious". Well then, why is Flynn taken so much less seriously than say, Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd? Is it because they buy his image instead of the movies themselves, and his image threatens a lot of guys? Hmmm. I hope to read the article tomorrow or this weekend. You've gotten me quite curious.

[JackFavell]

You know that could be the case. I know the article made me think which is a good thing. I just started to lose the thread of it when the Cagney comparison came in. And the author, to be fair didn't say that Flynn was a bad actor. He said that Cagney was more invested in his roles. I am feeling cantankerous about it for some reason. You may find the article innocuous, it WAS quite interesting up to almost the very end. Maybe he just felt he had to end it and this was the way he chose. I don't know.

[JackFavell]

Is part of the problem that Errol Flynn's style of acting is to make everything look easy and effortless? Therefore, he isn't taken too seriously as an actor. But if you've ever tried to look easy and effortless while acting, you know how difficult this is. You probably know the story, which Robert Osborne has told on TCM, about how Bette Davis looked down on Flynn's acting but realized years later when she watched THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX that Flynn had actually given a fine performance.

I think that's exactly the problem, kingrat. You couldn't be more right. It's an art, the more you TRY to look effortless, the worse you get. And watching from our information filled time period, we probably actually know MORE about Flynn and his private life and his studio problems, which makes it even harder to keep all that out of the equation when discussing his acting.

I knew you liked Silver River, it has intrigued me ever since I read your words about it. I'm very much wanting to watch these later Flynn movies that I had avoided before, plus of course, I'm trying to get more Walsh films under my belt. I think the changing point for me was watching the Barrymore bio. Flynn was just so good in it that it changed my feelings about his later career. My aversion to the later films (without seeing them) was probably influenced by those critics and books that perpetuate the image of a wasted man. Lately I've found some worthwhile things in movies that are supposed to be terrible, and also discovered movies that have virtually never been examined critically.

[charliechaplinfan]

It's watching the later Flynn movies that made me realise just how good he is, he is effortless in those early roles, many tailored just to show how good he looks and how his fit good looking image is the epitomy of a hero, those screenplays and supporting casts were so good that it's easy to say that Flynn was only a so so actor but watch the movies where he doesn't have a derring do plot to rely on and I'll concur in some of the early films his character is formuliac and Flynn's persona is not allowed to develop, he's very much straitjacketed in what he's allowed to do in some of his early parts even having the same supporting cast around him. Watching the later movies has really made me appreciate just how talented Flynn was.

I'd never thought of him having an Austrailian accent Wendy although I know he is Australian but I am tone deaf to accents, Chris is really good so I asked him if he could hear an Austrailian accent in Errol's voice and he said only in certain words. I think he must have practiced to remove a trace of an accent, to me he always sounds English but then I would say that, wouldn't I?

The only reason I could see to compare Cagney and Flynn is that they were at Warners, I can't see any other similarity. For me Flynn's contemprorary was always Gable or perhaps Tyrone Power.

[MissGoddess]

I too became more aware of his power as a real actor from his later roles. Then he couldn't rely on dash and derring-do, it came from who he was as a man and was always very interesting.

[charliechaplinfan]

I'm in complete agreement there, his role in Too Much Too Soon was almost too painful to watch but it was great, it's such a pity he didn't get an Oscar nod for that one.

[JackFavell]

I agree, this is where I'm starting to see his real profoundness, I've put them off too long, and I have been surprised in a good way so far with every one.

[charliechaplinfan]

It's almost like his good looks hampered him and locked him into a type and I've yet to see an actor who in their prime was as striking and I'll include Gable and many others in that assessment, he was striking, Michaelangelo I'm sure wouldn't have hesitated to use him as a model.