Errol Flynn: The Signature Collection (DVD) (6-Pack)
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Errol Flynn is one of those names that define movie stardom.
Chiseled good looks that stopped just short of being
preous. A b and jaunty manner that charmed men and
women alike. Whiffs of bad-boy scandal offscreen that only
enhanced his legend (not for nothing did "In like Flynn" become a
national catchphrase!). And enough marquee-worthy titles that in
memory's ear ring like classics.
Flynn's stardom wasn't on a par with the richly ambiguous
artistry of Cary Grant, or the deep, enduring heroic legacy of
John Wayne, or the indelible character work amassed by Flynn's
Warner Bros. contemporaries Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and
Edward G. Robinson. Still, this most celebrated of Tasmanian
devils was a one-of-a-kind, often raffishly entertaining icon of
Hollywood in the '30s and '40s who played a big part in making
the golden age glow. And for most of us, to say "swashbuckler" is
to conjure up Flynn's wolfish grin above a rapier, director Mike
Curtiz's wall-filling shadows of dueling men, and the symphonic,
trumpet-filled music scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
Stardom came swiftly. After two small-part assignments at
Warners, the studio awarded Flynn the title role in Captain Blood
(1935)--in retrospect, a sort of rough draft for his most beloved
movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood (
/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005JKEZ/${0} ) (1938; not in this
collection). The hero, an Irish-born physician wrongly convicted
of treason during the reign of King James, is sentenced to a life
of slavery in Jamaica. In short order he's charmed his new
master's niece (the bright-eyed Olivia De Havilland, Maid
Marian-to-be) and contrived an escape with his rebel comrades to
become lusty, albeit passionately populist, buccaneers. The
film's budget was clearly limited (there's a stark absence of
horizons in the tropic and seagoing scenes), but director
Curtiz's camerawork cunningly evokes the ever-present tilting and
rolling of life aboard ship. Much-O-nominated, the movie
certified Flynn as the Douglas Fairbanks of the sound era--even
in blond tresses and without what would become his signatory
mustache.
If Captain Blood became the Flynn-Curtiz prototype for
swashbucklers, The Sea Hawk was the last, luxury model off the
line. Warners was always wired in to the zeitgeist, and this 1940
movie about English privateers saving Queen Elizabeth's island
nation from the Spanish Armada does double duty as an
in-Der-Fuehrer's-face allegory of the looming world war. No blank
horizons here, and every wall sports a towering of a world
ripe for conquest. Slickness is all: Claude Rains and Henry
Daniell are impeccably devious diplomats, and Sol Polito's
black-and-white cinematography shifts into sultry sepiatone when
the Sea Hawks sneak off to the tropics on a transatlantic
espionage mission. (As for Flynn's mission, his swashbuckling
would hereafter be confined to contemporary war pictures for the
duration.)
He also saddled up for some lively Westerns. Dodge City (1939)
is a knock-down, drag-out barn-burner in brassy Technicolor, with
Flynn as a trail boss reluctantly turned town marshal. Curtiz
directs yet again, with flair if not necessarily historical
conviction, and the presence of Robin Hood costars Olivia De
Havilland and Alan Hale (Little John) is virtually mandatory by
this point. Ripe villainy is supplied by Bruce Cabot
and--substituting, perhaps, for the un-frontier-worthy Basil
Rath--the fox-faced Victor Jory.
They Died with Their Boots On (1942) is filled with spectacular
Civil War and cavalry action, though its hagiographic
of George Armstrong Custer should set historically enlightened
viewers on the warpath. Nonetheless, it features Flynn's most
interesting performance in the collection. Whereas Curtiz was the
ideal director for the star in boy's-own-adventure mode, Raoul
Walsh elicited more nuanced work from him (see especially their
wonderful Gentleman Jim ( /exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005JO48/${0} ),
not included in this collection), and the scenes between Flynn
and Olivia De Havilland achieve a tenderness that deepens with
each reel. The magic-hour cinematography is by veteran John Ford
cameraman Bert Glennon.
And that--apart from a new documentary feature, The Adventures
of Errol Flynn--leaves The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex
(1939). Sad to say, that doesn't leave much. Bette Davis (taking
the role Flora Robson played in The Sea Hawk) and Flynn (as the
English knight the not-so-Virgin Queen loved but feared as a
rival) have zero chemistry; she delivers a mannered performance
only a Bette Davis impersonator could love, and Flynn
demonstrates how stiff he could be (no pun intended) when
clueless about his material. In fairness to both, the movie is a
static adaptation of a very repetitious and declamatory Maxwell
Anderson play. Its inclusion here is notable only as a vast
technical improvement on the long-ago VHS release. --Richard T.
Jameson