DESPERATE JOURNEY (1942)
You know you’re in trouble from the start, when you meet the members of an RAF flight team, and they’re introduced by their countries of origin: Canada, Australia, Great Britain, the USA. And then about 10 minutes later, you realize you’re grateful that they’ve been introduced by their countries of origin, because otherwise there’d be no way of telling them apart. I mean, they look different, but they’re all defined by the same trait: they just want to have a good time. (Aren’t we lucky they joined the war effort?) Desperate Journey is a jokey adventure about an RAF bomber that goes down over Germany, and the fliers’ struggles to make their way home. It’s common enough to see films where soldiers mask their terror with a devil-may-care attitude — where they use practical jokes to distract themselves, or to relieve the pressure-cooker atmosphere. These guys commit practical jokes because — well, because they think they’re fun. They make coy and corny remarks because — well, perhaps because that’s just how they talk. The creative team seems to believe they’re fashioning brave fliers who laugh in the face of danger, but as none of them seem capable of conveying a sense of risk or peril, they just come off like lucky idiots. Alan Hale spits seeds at people and mimics German soldiers to their faces — German soldiers holding guns on them, mind you. Second-billed Ronald Reagan outwits a Nazi officer interested in American aeronautical advances by talking in gobbledygook, but his delivery is so rushed — and therefore his efforts so transparent — it’s a wonder he’s not shot on sight. (None of the five fliers are given any distinctive personality traits — except Hale is given a hearty appetite.) Heaven forbid the pilots of the RAF actually take the mission seriously — or grow alarmed or impassioned by any of the abominations that they’re fighting: invasion, annexation, extermination. Screenwriter Arthur T. Horman doesn’t write dialogue; he divides exposition among multiple characters. It’s the kind of film where, when their plane is forced to make an emergency landing, Flynn informs his crew, “The port engines are gone.” But he doesn’t seem alarmed or frantic; the dialogue is concerned only with facts, not the emotions behind them. It’s the “here’s what’s happening, and here’s what we do next” style of writing. With the controls failing, what are their options? “Tell the men to stand by for a crash landing.” And after the crash, when they’re assessing casualties: “Is he badly hurt?” “Pretty bad, I think.” “Somebody better give me a hand with him.” It’s the first film in which Flynn seems somewhat deadened. You see him straining to bring a bit of gravitas to the proceedings — but the lines keep undermining him. There’s a wildly awkward moment where one of the fliers insists that Hale is too old to be on active duty. “He had four years of fighting in the last war,” Flynn informs him, and the soldier retorts, “He ought to have left this one to the young men.” “That’s what he thought,” Flynn counters, “till he lost his son at Dunkirk.” And he smirks — he seems to momentarily forget that this was supposed to be a serious moment — then there’s an awkward cut to one of the other soldiers, who’s equally uncertain how to react. No one knows how to respond when they’re supposed to cop to the gravity of the situation. (They’re so busy making mischief, they don’t even have time to clock the fatalities.) Every 20 minutes or so, the fliers pause to reveal a sad backstory, or to remind each other — almost offhandedly — of the magnitude of their mission. In other words, every 20 minutes or so, the film tries to convince you you’re watching something other than the film you’re watching. It’s like the worst recruitment poster ever: Canadian, Australian, British or American — you all have the right to be equally self-deluded.
Desperate Journey: 4
Errol Flynn: 6
GENTLEMAN JIM (1942)
It purports to chart the rise of James “Gentleman Jim” Corbett, the World Heavyweight Champion who dominated the prizefighting world during the early years of the Queensborough Rules (which insisted on glove matches) — but the writers seem to throw in the towel about 20 minutes in. They bob and weave around the very events you most want to see. A lowly bank clerk, Corbett schemes to get admitted to San Francisco’s exclusive Olympic Club; the gentlemen there — tired of sneaking off to bare-knuckle fights and getting arrested — determine they’ll sponsor their own boxers, to help establish it as a legitimate sport. The membership seizes upon Corbett as a prime candidate — but the next time we see him at the club, it’s weeks later, and they’re already plotting to get rid of him. He nonetheless manages to win his first match, then gets into an argument at the afterparty and takes off in a huff — and when we cut to the following scene, he and best pal Jack Carson are waking up in a hotel room in Utah. (“How did we ever get here?” “I don’t know.”) It turns out that in their drunken haze, they boarded a train to Salt Lake City, where Corbett boasted to bar owner William Frawley that he could best the local champion — and Frawley set up a match for that evening. (This all happened off-screen, mind you. Time keeps on slipping, and it’s not pretty.) The next thing you know, Corbett is in a ring, a guy takes a swing at him, and Corbett knocks him out. Then suddenly he’s back home in San Francisco, surrounded by his working-class Irish family, swearing he’s through with boxing — then five minutes later, he’s decided to challenge the local champion to a match. Whiplash is, in fact, a common injury in boxing, so perhaps writers Vincent Lawrence and Horace McCoy set out to demonstrate exactly how it feels. Or perhaps, you know, they were just really bad at their jobs. And that said, stars Errol Flynn and Alexis Smith see you through those early, scrappy reels. As Flynn plays him, Corbett is not just literally but figuratively quick on his feet. He’s brash and charming, and can insinuate himself into pretty much any situation. And at the same time, his self-absorption can be maddening; he’s at once sly and callow. (He’s scarcely met Smith — her father is a member of the Olympic Club, so he seizes the opportunity to ingratiate himself — and he’s already asking her to tie his boxing gloves and hold his cigar.) And Smith is a revelation. Her character keeps insisting she hates Corbett, but Smith lets us see (in the looks, not the lines) how smitten she is — and how torn, too. (He’s far beneath her station, and in 19th-century San Francisco, things like that matter.) Each time she turns up at one of his matches and howls for him to get pummeled, you sense she’s engaged in a fight of her own: battling an attraction she can’t admit to. As Corbett takes the boxing world by storm, climaxing in his legendary fight with world heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan, the script — thank heavens — becomes more cohesive and propulsive. And all the things the writers should’ve clarified early on are addressed by Flynn, Smith and director Raoul Walsh — including just how Corbett manages to win all those fights. Corbett talks at one point about wearing his opponents down, but it’s in the ring that Flynn and Walsh let you see his defensive strategy, which involves quick sharp jobs designed to keep his opponent off balance. Flynn’s legs prance around the arena like a gazelle’s; his thighs are better toned than the script.
(And given that Corbett was the first sex symbol of the modern sports era, it feels perfect that — in the climactic match — Flynn keeps smoothing his hair between rounds.) Flynn, Smith and Walsh clarify details the writers choose to gloss over; they make the film rich and satisfying in ways you never would’ve imagined. In boxing parlance, their work amounts to a knockout.
Gentleman Jim: 9
Errol Flynn: 10
EDGE OF DARKNESS (1943)
One of Flynn‘s greatest films; the only thing wrong with it is Flynn. The opening scenes are among the most harrowing in cinematic history, and the final climactic battle is a masterpiece. Lewis Milestone’s stark stylization seems a perfect expression of a world trapped in apocalyptic agony. And Robert Rossen’s script is a model of stinging, harrowing propaganda. It starts with German troops arriving in an occupied Norwegian town where — mysteriously — the country’s flag is once again flying; they find the streets littered with corpses, German and Norwegian alike. And then Rossen eases us back in time and permits us to see what happened. This small fishing village has been occupied for two years, and you sense how it’s been reshaped against its will. Relationships have grown strained, or crumbled. Some citizens have held to their belief of a peaceful outcome, whereas others — certain there’s no scenario in which this ends well — are prepared to do the most damage to reassert their dignity. The British smuggle them guns and ammunition, and tell them to attack as soon as the entire Norwegian coast is armed. And so the townspeople gather at their church and discuss whether or not to act; essentially, they debate the cost of freedom. The occupants of the town feel traumatized twice over: first by the invasion, and now by the occupation — and they’ve lost patience with each other. No one has time for sentimentality. When one man expresses doubts about taking arms, he’s branded a traitor; he counters, “I’m a farmer. If I lose my farm, there must be a reason for it. The sacrifice of one poor village — what will it accomplish?” But hotelier Judith Anderson has no use for compassion: “What sacrifice? What are you giving up? Your life? Maybe they’ll take that from you whether you fight or not.” Town doctor Walter Huston advocates for patience: “Wait. A tidal wave has swept over us, but when it recedes…” But Anderson knows how the metaphor ends: “We will all be drowned.” Huston turns to rhetoric: “Ask yourself these questions. Do you want your country ravaged, your homes burned?” — then making an emotional appeal: “Do you want your children bombed as they were in Stoksund?” And seated behind him is his onscreen daughter Ann Sheridan, who — having joined the resistance — preempts him coldly: “Ask your children those questions.” It’s a devastating scene. No one is forgiving of the old sentiments, or the familiar, friendly bombast. No one will permit self-indulgences. Even kindness seems like a luxury. How does a town make such an important decision with its head when it’s already had to sacrifice its soul? Aside from Flynn, everyone in the cast understands how to pitch their lines with melodramatic precision — because wartime permits little more. But Flynn can’t manage it: his line readings are uncommonly flat. And admittedly, his character is somewhat underwritten — he doesn’t have family ties that test his loyalty, or feelings of inadequacy that prompt him to act out; he’s merely there to lead the resistance. But nevertheless, it’s startling how little he brings to the role; he’s so nondescript that it’s possible to glance up at the screen at times and wonder who that is. (The second or third time you watch, you might wonder what the role would be like with the sweaty athleticism of John Payne, or the intensity of Alan Ladd, or the thoughtful intelligence of Joseph Cotten, or the slick charm of Van Heflin. Flynn could go any number of ways; it’s alarming that he chooses not to go anywhere at all.) Flynn’s rape trial began while the film was in production, and friends and co-workers have recalled that he could barely drag himself to the set each day. He developed a sinus infection while filming, then the press started to turn on him because of what they saw — inaccurately, because Warner Bros. wouldn’t reveal his health issues — as his refusal to enlist. To say his mind was elsewhere would be understating it. The film is aglow with creativity; Flynn alone is trapped on the edge of darkness.
Edge of Darkness: 10
Errol Flynn: 5
NORTHERN PURSUIT (1943)
The first 10 minutes are oversized and outrageous, with a submarine emerging through an icy tundra, a map passed between spies via coded message, a band of Nazis making their way through the North Country of Canada by dogsled — and an avalanche burying the lot of them. You couldn’t claim the film ever achieves that level of high spirits again, but it’s never dull. Loosely based on the Leslie T. White novel 5000 Trojan Horses, Northern Pursuit concerns a team of Nazis determined to get to a German bomber that’s been dismantled and hidden in the Canadian wilderness — and the efforts of Errol Flynn’s Mountie to stop them. As scripted and shot, the film details Flynn’s intent to infiltrate the Nazi spies by posing as a German sympathizer. As ultimately edited and screened, the film tries to fool us into thinking that Flynn’s Mountie — a Canadian of German descent — has turned traitor after a few days spent with a captured Nazi flier (Helmut Dantine, fresh from Edge of Darkness) and joined the cause. But the scene where Flynn and his sergeant map out his undercover strategy was left in the 1943 trailer, so it’s unlikely that audiences of the time were fooled — and we’re not fooled either; removing the scene just results in an edit so choppy, we instantly sense that things aren’t what they seem. The writers don’t even leave us to wonder whether the Nazis are falling for Flynn’s act — they inform us almost immediately that they’re not. So elements of suspense that might’ve elevated the film aren’t there — but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter much. Frank Gruber — best known his quickie detective stories — did the screenplay, and everyone involved understands how to give themselves over to — and amplify — his pulpy style. It’s the kind of film where — when German prisoners of war hatch an escape plan — we watch them signal each other by panning from one set of eyes to another; when Dantine contemplates shooting one of his prisoners, we linger on a shot of his gun, waiting to see whether it fires. The frequent, tight close-ups tell us everything about the world of espionage and intrigue we’ve landed in; they heighten our senses in a cheap but effective way. The film plays into our paranoia that the enemy might be among us, yet admits to prejudices that makes citizens of German descent feel seen as untrustworthy. And it avoids Desperate Journey’s blunder of sapping its own suspense by treating the Nazis as lightweights; Dantine’s German flier is tough, clever, zealous and merciless: a formidable adversary because he anticipates Flynn’s every move — and no one ever manages that. There are a host of other strong performers pushing the film along. Gene Lockhart is an effective Nazi collaborator: seedy and sweaty; the unbilled Rose Higgins exudes both presence and warmth as one of the Cree hostages; and although Flynn’s love interest Julie Bishop has been largely forgotten to time, she’s plucky and sweet and sensible. But ultimately, when you think back on the film, you remember it as a two-hander between Flynn and Dantine. The film understands that in some parallel universe, they’re flip sides of the same coin. (Amusingly, Flynn is costumed in black and Dantine in white.) And somewhere there’s a far better movie where the screenwriters seize upon that duality and play it up — and devote more time to the strategies these two engage in, from their efforts to charm each other in the opening reels to their efforts to outwit each other in the closing ones. Northern Pursuit isn’t that film, but what’s there is arresting enough — a romp with an uncommonly high body count — that you’re willing to overlook all that’s missing.
Northern Pursuit: 7
Errol Flynn: 8
UNCERTAIN GLORY (1944)
A thief and killer, eager to put off his execution, comes up with a novel suggestion that appeals to his jailor. France has fallen, but resistors are everywhere. Saboteurs have blown up a bridge in a town southeast of Paris, and the Nazis have rounded up 100 locals, threatening to execute them all if one of the saboteurs doesn’t come forward. Flynn, due to be put to death in Paris, proposes to the police inspector who captured him (Paul Lukas) that he confess to the bombing; he’d rather face the firing squad than the guillotine — and besides, he’d be saving 100 innocent men in the process. It’s a hard pitch where Lukas is concerned — he’s a humorless officer who adheres to the letter of the law — but he finds himself unable to argue with the reasoning: why should 100 innocent man be murdered? And with Flynn due to die, does it really matter how? Flynn opens up a philosophical question, merely as a means of delaying his execution a few days (and perhaps to buy himself time to plan an escape), betting that Lukas will take the bait. But little does he dream that he’ll become ensnared by his own trap; as the two of them take shelter for a few days in the town under siege — so that Flynn can absorb the details of the bombing, to better pose as the saboteur — Flynn falls prey to loftier notions he once would’ve laughed at. Like quite a few late Flynn vehicles, Uncertain Glory has a dandy premise and an execution that’s not quite worthy of it, but it’s such a change-of-pace role for Flynn — and he so clearly pours himself into it — that it’s eminently watchable and occasionally absorbing. At times Flynn is nearly unrecognizable from the character you’ve spent a decade admiring on the screen. The script calls for Lukas to describe him as “a little stupid,” and Flynn runs with that. He deadens his reaction time; you watch him processing information methodically, in a way that no Flynn character has ever needed to. Oh, he’s still armed with the occasional clever comeback, but — unlike in most Flynn films — he’s rarely the sharpest tool in the box. You see Flynn invigorated by the challenge of playing against his natural instincts; you also see him at times lapse into old habits — and occasionally run adrift. (The editing at times is so scrappy, you wonder how much of his performance had to be assembled in the editing room. But then, the editing is scrappy in a lot of Raoul Walsh films of this period.) But Flynn excels at the central conceit; as his character taps into an innate decency he’d lost along the way, you’re left wondering: will that be enough to allow him to reclaim his soul? Or has he already trod so far along a darker path that he’s irredeemable? From moment to moment, you’re never certain if an unexpected act of kindness on his part is prompted by an ulterior motive — and if he won’t run the second he gets a chance. And he’s Flynn — don’t we want him to run? The script by the estimable novelist Max Brand (his only Hollywood screenplay) muddies the moral waters, not only by casting Flynn as a career criminal, but by casting concerned citizen Lucile Watson in a negative light. With her son among the hundred taken away by Nazis, she decides the only way to save him is to finger a stranger for the sabotage — and who better then the dashing figure who’s just arrived in town? The immorality of the Nazis is never in question — but pretty much everyone else’s is. How far will people go when pushed to the brink? Is it easier to lose a soul than to reclaim one? Brand takes all the themes that distinguish his westerns — the lawman who loses his moral compass, the outlaw’s hunger for redemption and the hearty woman who nudges him down that path — and brings them to bear on war-torn Europe. The transplant is remarkably successful.
Uncertain Glory: 8
Errol Flynn: 9
OBJECTIVE, BURMA! (1945)
The things that make Objective, Burma! notable are also the things that keep it from being altogether memorable. A skilled depiction of Allied efforts to take back Burma in World War II — after being driven out by the Japanese in early 1942 — it refuses to sentimentalize its soldiers the way most war films do: by giving each a clear backstory or personality — or at the very least, an accent, mannerism or tic. The point Objective, Burma! makes is that once you put a uniform on a soldier, he’s pretty much indistinguishable from his comrades — and once he dies, he’s reduced to a dog tag. When you place men on a long mission, they’re not going to assert themselves by their singularities; their commonality of experience is going to make them more alike, not less. (And in fact, actor William Prince recalled that the one piece of direction that Raoul Walsh gave was, “All right, boys, no Hamlets in the jungle.”) What impresses most about Objective, Burma! isn’t how the actors stand out, but how they work in tandem — and not in terms of the military operations they carry out, but in terms of day-to-day practices that have come to seem routine. You truly get a sense of what a long deployment this has been — and how much they’re doing unconsciously: the way their anti-malarials are handed or tossed to them; the way they check each other‘s parachutes before jumping to their destination. The way two soldiers know that they’re the ones who should strip off their shirts to make a stretcher for a wounded comrade. These sorts of instinctual moments — drilled into them by the routine of military life — are some of the most affecting scenes in the film, but the emphasis on community over individuality means there’s no sense of loss when one of them dies in battle, because you never really got to know them. You feel the mounting horror common to war films, but you don’t feel the grief or even — in the film’s closing moments — the expected sense of exhilaration. (The film’s unwillingness to editorialize or romanticize the wartime experience means the flag-waving speeches — so common to films of this time — seem wildly out of place, as when Henry Hull, as an aging reporter who tags along for a story, references a soldier’s home address in informing him, “If more people back home would realize that Crane Street, Schenectady, runs all the way to Burma, this would be the last war.” The moment — and there are a few others like it — lands with a thud.) The film is well paced, and despite its 142-minute running time, never drags. One hour in, what had seemed like a simple in-and-out mission becomes something much more difficult; that bleak, sudden turnaround more than sustains your interest to the end. There are two standouts among the sizable cast and crew. One is film editor George Amy, justly nominated for an Academy Award. (Amy, one of the creators of the Warner Bros. house style, had won an Oscar in 1943 for Howard Hawks’s Air Force.) And the other is Flynn. It’s easy to argue that any solid Hollywood actor could’ve played his part, given the limited range the script and approach allow. But that’s to undervalue how much Flynn accomplishes within such tight parameters. He’s in command of every scene, but he’s careful not to assert his personality onto the storyline. He understands the demands of the film just as a captain understands the needs of his troops — and as a result, his modesty, warmth, attentiveness and intensity become indistinguishable from his character’s. And when given the right opportunity, he shines. When informed by the plane dropping supplies that there’s no way to airlift the soldiers to safety — that they’ll have to walk hundreds of miles through unknown terrain — a sense of defeat and grief clouds his face: not so much for himself, but for the soldiers under his command who haven’t yet experienced that level of hardship. There’s something self-effacing about his performance that you don’t expect; it’s not a quality you associate with Flynn, but he gives himself over to the demands of the assignment — like a good soldier.
Objective, Burma!: 8
Errol Flynn: 9
SAN ANTONIO (1945)
There are two great things about San Antonio: Errol Flynn — and the character he plays. Screenwriter Alan Le May was hired by Warner Bros. to chart Flynn‘s return to Western territory. It’s not just Flynn who elevates the film; it’s the conception of his character. (W.R. Burnett, an accredited screenwriter, apparently spent five months on the screenplay after Le May delivered his draft — but according to Le May, little of Burnett’s work remains in the film. Both writers are such admirable figures in Hollywood history that it seems reasonable to presume that neither is responsible for the wildly unfunny bits given to the wildly unfunny S.Z. Sakall — as when he corrects a bandleader during a rehearsal, “You must not go doodle doodle deedle, you must go deedle deedle doodle” — and that they were improvised on the set. Let’s go with that, anyway.) Flynn is Clay Harkin, a Texas rancher whose cattle were rustled out from under him, who so feared for his life that he had to flee to Mexico. But now he’s returning with the evidence he needs to put the bad guys away for good — he’s coming home, as it were. For all its faults — and there are many — few films ever quite seized upon the Errol Flynn persona with such precision. His character is confident in himself, his prowess and his charms — the essence of cocksure. An innocent man done wrong, he wins our loyalty from the start, but from the almost breezy way in which he faces and vanquishes his opponents, his wins our admiration as well. Harkin never doubts that he’ll succeed — it’s Flynn, so we would never have doubted it either — but it’s a delight to see Flynn (after years of onscreen wartime service) not merely return to the sort of character we love, but to embrace it. Too bad he’s basically on his own. David Butler directs without wit or grace. You’ve rarely seen so many reaction shots shoehorned in; he seems to have no idea how to construct a scene except to pause long enough for the characters to dictate our responses. Florence Bates is wasted, Sakall is insufferable and Alexis Smith is inconsistent. (She manages to pull off “sincere” and “flirtatious,” but her “intimidated” is terrible, and her “petty” is worse.) That said, the film moves along at a smooth enough clip until Flynn‘s best friend is murdered halfway through — and then it all goes to pieces. But Flynn and Harkin keep you engaged. If anything, Harkin has less reason to feel confident than any of Flynn’s other characters — he’s basically a dead man walking from the moment he begins his trek back to the States — but San Antonio doesn’t let logic like that get in the way. The lack of logic is precisely the point. San Antonio plays to the image of Errol Flynn audiences most needed to see at that time. Harkin won’t even consider the possibility of his own defeat — he’s been there once, and has no intention of going back. San Antonio speaks to audiences feeling disoriented and displaced after World War II; it appeals both to soldiers returning from overseas, uncertain what awaits them, and to moviegoers who treasure their memory of the Errol Flynn who first burst upon the screen a decade earlier and wonder where he went. And San Antonio assures them, you can go home again. It’s a crummy movie, but a great message.
San Antonio: 5
Errol Flynn: 8
NEVER SAY GOODBYE (1946)
It’s a romantic comedy that manages to be both sexy and funny. It’s about a divorced couple who can’t stay apart: there’s no real build to any of it — and no epiphany that prompts the couple’s reconciliation at the end. The film has simply been going on for about 90 minutes, and both the couple and the audience feel it’s time they reunited. Never Say Goodbye, which boasts I.A.L. Diamond among its screenwriters, is somewhat of a haphazard affair — even rehashing the mirror bit from Duck Soup, for no apparent reason — but from moment to moment, the details are rarely less than charming, and sometimes quite a bit more than that. Flynn rarely gave a more winning performance. It’s not just his line readings; it’s what he does between the lines: the smiles and smirks, the mumbles, the changes of mood he affects subtly yet securely. Being in a romantic comedy (as opposed to an adventure with a couple of love scenes tossed in) allows Flynn to pour on the charm, and lets him and leading lady Eleanor Parker develop a genuine relationship — and with Flynn and Parker, you don’t just get attraction and affection, but appetite. Sexual appetite. Flynn seems to be practically ravaging Parker with his words, and she seems content to let him. Although Never Say Goodbye is ostensibly about an errant husband trying to win back his ex-wife, the screenwriters shrewdly make Parker a willing participant. Uncertain that she did the right thing by filing for divorce (she was prodded on by her mother, Lucile Watson, essentially playing the same role she played in Footsteps in the Dark), Parker grows determined to prove that she’s lost none of her allure. Flynn knows how to push her buttons, but she knows how to push his — and at times it’s hard to tell who is seducing whom. But she’s also able to match him quip for quip, often while cutting him down to size. When he inquires, provocatively, “Don’t you ever wake up in the middle of the night and wonder where I am and what I’m doing?”, she responds with calculated sweetness, “I asked myself that when we were together, too.” She sees right through him — but that doesn’t mean she craves him any less. Parker energizes Flynn; he was never more in command of his comedic skills — or his seductive charms. Flynn remains as much of a lover as ever, but part of what makes Never Say Goodbye so enjoyable is that he’s no longer much of a fighter. Flynn was 37 when the film was released, and when strapping Forrest Tucker (10 years his junior and 3 inches taller) shows up in the final third, as a rival for his ex-wife’s affections, Flynn is surprisingly gracious in permitting himself to become an object of ridicule. His willingness to parody his own image — to posture he’s still the man he was 10 years ago, then be upstaged and humiliated by Tucker’s athleticism — is part of the very real charm of Never Say Goodbye. The film feels something of a turning point for Flynn. Ever since Captain Blood made him a star, the Flynn persona has been based on a notion of infallibility. His decisions are invariably right; his intentions are unquestionably decent. And when he sets his mind to something, he’s unstoppable. Never Say Goodbye exposes the chinks in the armor — and gives Flynn the new lease on life he craves. Although his performances to come will be hit or miss, the best will accept and embrace his imperfections.
Never Say Goodbye: 8
Errol Flynn: 10
CRY WOLF (1947)
The novel by Marjorie Carlton — winner of the Edgar Allen Poe award — presented so many challenges in adaptation, it’s a wonder Warner Bros. thought to take it on. A romantic thriller with Gothic horror overtones, it essentially boils down to a love story between a young woman and her husband’s uncle. How in hell do you film that? Perhaps fearing that if they made the female protagonist the same age as she is in the novel — 22 — and had Errol Flynn put the moves on her to get what he wants, they’d basically be replaying his rape trial, they doubled her age and cast Barbara Stanwyck. (Or perhaps they felt they needed the box-office clout of both Flynn and Stanwyck.) But it makes the premise preposterous. Stanwyck’s Sandra Marshall turns up at a family mansion claiming to be the wife of Flynn’s recently deceased nephew, demanding the inheritance due her. Given how miscast Stanwyck seems — especially when you glimpse a photo of the man she was supposedly married to, and he looks young enough to be her son — there’s shockingly little attention paid to the question: is she telling the truth, or is she an imposter? The novel — told from Sandra’s point of view — begins with her meeting her future husband and him persuading her to marry, so the reader knows that everything she’s saying is true — but the film begins months later, with her showing up just prior to a funeral with a wild claim; did it not occur to screenwriter Catherine Turney — or to anyone at Warner Bros. — that eliminating Sandra’s backstory, then casting an actress twenty years too old for the role, would immediately cast doubt on her assertions? Apparently not, because as unlikely as Stanwyck’s claim seems, we’re never asked to suspect it — a disconnect that saps half the suspense from the film. (And Stanwyck is simply too old for the “brave young woman wanders around scary mansion“ bit she’s called upon to do here.) And perhaps oversensitive to the fact that audiences hadn’t cared for Flynn’s portrayal of a rotter in Uncertain Glory, the edge is filed off his character. He seems slick and smooth (and mercurial and occasionally menacing), but the scenario suggested by the book jacket — where Sandra is “marked for murder by one of the most brilliant and scheming intellects she has ever encountered” — never materializes. Flynn seems sinister at times, sure, but also suave and dignified when he cares to be; it’s possible to imagine that the ominous undertones are mere protectiveness towards his family, so — big spoiler! — the surprise ending is basically foreshadowed an hour in advance. And of course, the crucial conflict — that Sandra, disbelieving that her husband is dead, starts to fall for his uncle (a scenario suggesting emotional infidelity and incest) — was never going to make it to the screen, so Stanwyck is stuck having to feel “admiration” rather than “lust” — hardly as bracing a dilemma. There’s almost nothing left of the novel’s trashy potboiler charm. The Gothic horror aspects are well handled, though, and director Peter Godfrey manages suspense even when he can’t attain thrills. Carl E. Guthrie’s cinematography is spot-on, and the family manse has got the right look: the steep and winding staircases, looming family portraits, and grandfather clock chiming so loudly it could wake the dead. And Stanwyck and Flynn give it everything they’re permitted to give. With its thorniest themes so muted or muddied, Cry Wolf is basically reduced to a film about star power, and as such, it holds your attention; it just would’ve been nice if it had been allowed to grab it, too.
Cry Wolf: 6
Errol Flynn: 7
ESCAPE ME NEVER (1947)
Flynn‘s introduction — screaming at a baby while playing a concertina — is delightful. His reactions seem as sharp as ever, and you’re briefly encouraged. Then, just a few minutes later, he holds a pose seemingly forever — as if unaware that the camera is fastened on him — and you’re left deflated. You never know which Flynn you’re going to get. It’s Venice in 1900, and he’s a composer who lacks the will to work, so he relies on his charm: eking out an existence with whatever devoted street urchin Ida Lupino can steal for them. (Of all his films to this point, Escape Me Never probably comes the closest to capturing the real Flynn: the one too busy seeking the next conquest to care about the latest.) As for Lupino, she’s called upon to be many things: tomboy, thief, free spirit, doting mother, unrequited lover, jealous vixen — practical in some respects, and vehemently impractical in others. She’s given her heart completely to Flynn, fully aware that he’s an uncaring cad. It’s a hard role to sell; what exactly is the attraction, other than he’s Flynn? The script never makes it clear, but Lupino works it for all she’s worth, and that’s part of the problem: you see a whole lot of effort up there on the screen. (It makes her an odd mismatch with Flynn, whose manner of acting was never to show the sweat.) Lupino and Flynn had a brief affair during the making of the movie; Lupino has said that’s why their scenes crackle, and they do — but they have the sort of chemistry shared by close chums, not romantic partners. The sexual sparks lie elsewhere, between Flynn and Eleanor Parker, as the socialite that Flynn’s brother (Gig Young, also a composer, and very good) is engaged to marry. The heat between Flynn and Parker makes the movie a much more muddied affair than the creators seem to realize, but nonetheless, the film plods along, insistent Flynn will realize that Lupino is the love of his life. Some of the rear projections are dreadful, and the backdrops drab, but director Peter Godfrey and art director Carl Jules Weyl (both of whom did Cry Wolf) — and three-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Sol Polito — are a solid team, and they put together a smooth package. Thames Williamson’s screenplay adheres closely to the 1935 film of the same name, itself based on a novel by Margaret Kennedy. Williamson wasn’t untalented (his 1933 “novel of the Ozark Hills,” The Woods Colt, remains a classic), but his film work — less than a dozen screenplays in all — was decidedly uneven. (His two best scripts, Cheyenne and A Bullet Is Waiting, no doubt owe much to co-scenarists Alan Le May and Casey Robinson, respectively.) And so it is with Escape Me Never: it’s as up and down as the mountain trek at its core. But just as Lupino can’t seem to let go of Flynn, the movie refuses to release its grip; every time it starts to flounder, you get a good scene or two that draws you back in, and Escape Me Never becomes briefly, almost compulsively watchable. You’re well aware of all the scenes you’ve seen countless times in far better films. But occasionally the cast and crew are able to take those tired clichés — the hapless man torn between the loving waif and the rich-bitch socialite; the wife willing to starve so her husband can be artistically fulfilled; the standoff between the classical composer and the imperious diva; even the death of a child that serves no real purpose other than to reunite the two leads — and show why they’ve had such staying power. At the end of the day, Escape Me Never isn’t half bad: maybe just 40%.
Escape Me Never: 6
Errol Flynn: 6
SILVER RIVER (1948)
It starts with the choicest of premises. Take an iconic Flynn character: say, Major Vickers in The Charge of the Light Brigade or General Custer in They Died With Their Boots On. What if every time he disobeyed an order, he wasn’t miraculously steering his troops to victory — but screwing things up royally? How would it have affected his character? And where would he have gone from there? If the movie doesn’t quite know how to properly dramatize that premise — resulting in a lot of didacticism that you’d rather see play out as drama — you’re still willing to give it a pass because of the cleverness of the conceit. Flynn’s disgraced soldier, Mike McComb, is quick to realize that good intentions get him nowhere. Whatever he wants, he’ll have to take for himself. And with that understanding — that the world owes him nothing, and he shouldn’t expect anything from it — he charts his own corruption: at first striking a blow against those he feels have wronged him, then — as time goes by — embracing greed and ostentation as an end in themselves. As the married woman who falls prey to Flynn’s charms and fortune, Ann Sheridan overdoes her initial distaste — she seems to be shouting half her lines — but by the time she’s grown enamored with Flynn, her playing seems fully believable. (Contrarily, Flynn’s pursuit and seduction of Sheridan is wholly convincing, but once they’re married, he has trouble conveying the romance; every time he kisses her, it looks like an assault.) As a lush and lawyer — given to quoting the Bible to point out patterns of behavior (and portents of doom) — George Mitchell is a delight, and as a struggling mine owner that Flynn partners with in order to cuckold, Bruce Bennett manages a nice blend of affability and manliness. (Unlike so many of those sorts of characters, he doesn’t appear weak-kneed or piteous.) And as the heads of other mining combines who set out to ruin Flynn, Barton MacLean and Monty Blue convince as worthy adversaries. Raoul Walsh is at his most assured and Max Steiner at his most stirring (his plaintive main theme is one of his choicest, reflecting the arduous terrain and the relentless passage of time). Silver River is about a western town forced to do business with a deeply unethical man, and their growing discomfort with that — but the twist here is, that deeply unethical man is our hero. His overconfidence led him astray a long time ago; will he find his way back? The screenplay by Stephen Longstreet and Harriet Frank leaps from incident to incident; sometimes it gives them weight and precision, sometimes it falls back on the clichés of the genre — or leaves you to intuit what’s missing. (You never see Sheridan’s decision to forge a life with Flynn. It’s brushed off with a humdrum line like “I’ve always been in love with you,” and the next thing you know, they’re married. In a similar fashion, Mitchell’s leaps from undisciplined lawyer to self-appointed judge and jury to eager political candidate all seem to happen offscreen.) But the cast and creative team seem acutely aware of the themes they’re dramatizing, even when the screenwriters don’t. When Mitchell appears uninvited at Flynn and Sheridan’s lavish housewarming party and delivers a blistering attack on Macomb — exposing his role in the death of his wife’s first husband — the guests make their excuses and quietly exit when he’s finished, feeling the weight of their guilt and discomfort. But the moment isn’t properly dramatized in dialogue; it falls to Flynn, Sheridan and Walsh to sell it in angry and wounded looks, and long, lingering pans — and so they do. Even when the script gives them nothing to work with, the cast and creative team keep plowing along, and although you don’t always understand the route, you grow increasingly confident they’ll guide you to your destination.
Silver River: 8
Errol Flynn: 9
ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN (1948)
For the first 30 minutes or so, it seems like Flynn is reciting all his lines at half volume. His reaction times are slow, if there are reactions at all. And there are a few moments where you catch him staring offscreen, as if his mind is somewhere else. (A distracted Errol Flynn is almost an oxymoron.) Only when Don Juan meets and grows instantly entranced by the Queen of Spain — and Flynn awakens — do you realize that was his plan all along: not to show a young, fit Don Juan, one at the peak of his powers, but to show an aging one who has no purpose left in life. Who’s trapped on a treadmill of beautiful women, each of whom he seduces, then abandons out of boredom or bravado — or at the tip of a sword. He’s living on fumes, going through the motions. And it’s not until he’s captivated by the Queen that he imagines his life could serve a greater purpose, and that re-energizes him. And from there the Flynn you were expecting emerges. It’s a marvelous piece of — well, you couldn’t call it misdirection, because it’s in the script; you were just so consumed with wondering why Flynn seemed so disinterested, you didn’t realize it was an acting choice — and the correct one. So one could say of the first 30 minutes that Flynn serves the script well — and yet, there had to be a way of making it clear that we were witnessing the character’s disinterest, and not the actor’s — and that’s a distinction so subtle that Flynn, for all his talents, probably wasn’t able to master it. (And it surely doesn’t help that you’ve seen that sullen indifference — the actor’s, not the character’s — in a few recent films: in particular, Escape Me Never.) That said, at that 30-minute mark, Flynn becomes everything you hoped, and the film kicks into high gear. And thank goodness, because it already had so much going for it: some of the most beautiful pageantry in cinematic history (Travilla took home the Oscar for his costumes); splendid turns by Alan Hale, Robert Douglas and Jerry Austin; and a sterling performance by Viveca Lindfors. As Queen Margaret, Lindfors nails every moment allowed her; her outrage is especially impressive — much of it conveyed in silence — but when her heart softens, she’s no less expressive. (She and Flynn share a whale of a forbidden romance, and it when it results in a long-awaited kiss near the end, that kiss is genuinely swoon-worthy.) And Flynn’s performance grows impressively ferocious; after a lifetime of intrigue — both in courtship and at court — Don Juan feels the stakes have grown too high for pleasantries. He takes a dagger to a guard’s throat at one point and threatens to slit it if he doesn’t get the information he needs — and you can well imagine he might. Not since his shipboard imprisonment in The Sea Hawk have you seen Flynn so gaunt yet so feral, and it’s thrilling. Director Victor Sherman can do the court intrigue; he can do the passion, and he can do the pageantry. His weak spot is the action sequence that the entire film builds to. It’s the longest sword fight in Flynn‘s career, and it’s well staged (by stalwart Fred Cavens) — it’s just not particularly well shot. It means that the final setpiece doesn’t quite rise to the heights of the previous hour, and that’s a shame — although the closing scenes are so strong, you’re inclined to forgive and forget. By the time the lights come up, Don Juan is once again the hedonist and Flynn the legend they once were, and you can’t help but feel that’s all that matters.
Adventures of Don Juan: 9
Errol Flynn: 8
THAT FORSYTE WOMAN (1949)
A turd. Three actors — Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon and Robert Young — compete to see who’s the most miscast, and who can give the worst performance. It’s Victorian London — in this adaptation of the first novel of The Forsyte Saga — and solicitor Soames Forsyte (Flynn) has set his sights on piano teacher Irene Heron (Garson), several stations beneath his own. Nothing about stately, distant Greer Garson remotely resembles the kind of woman whom three men will ultimately fall for — let alone compete over. (She’s like the booby prize behind door #3, the one the studio audience groans at.) She agrees to marry Soames when, practically penniless, she has no other options; he treats her like a possession, and tells her what to wear, and with whom she should associate. He enjoys feeling like he owns her. But you don’t feel sorry for her, or sympathize with her imprisonment. It’s like watching a marble statue behind a glass case; you don’t imagine it’s suffering. Garson seems unable to imbue Irene with any personality whatsoever. She’s not disarmingly vivid or sensual or captivating. (There’s nothing to suggest why Soames is so taken with her, to the point of being willing to part with seemingly half his fortune to win her.) Occasionally, a twinge of emotion will run across Garson’s face, as if by accident — a wince at the mention of her husband’s name, or a smile when his niece comes to call — but most of the time, it feels like she’s unaware that filming has commenced, and no one has the heart to tell her. The film is already impossibly bad before they force Robert Young on us, as innovative architect Philip Bossiney. In one of his first scenes, Young opens his arms wide as he announces “my prospects are fabulous” — but there’s nothing fabulous about him. The unkept mop on his head is, one imagines, supposed to be indicative of a free spirit; perhaps that free spirit is intended to be irresistible, but he seems to be play-acting at every turn. (He can’t even wave convincingly.) He never once passes for an undisciplined Bohemian. But the movie proceeds full steam ahead, and his pursuit of Garson accelerates at a ridiculous pace, despite the lack of any visible chemistry between them. (At one point Young flirts with Garson so outrageously — in front of everyone — that his fiancé Janet Leigh comes off looking like an idiot.) And in Garson’s performance, you never get a sense of a woman so starved for affection that she’d commit the cardinal sin of stealing her niece’s fiancé. The few humorous moments are unintentional — and some distinctly meta, as when Young proclaims to Garson, who’s still denying her love for him, “Oh, why don’t we stop pretending?” (“Pretending“ is a kind word for what these two are doing up on the screen.) Robert Young’s idea of making love is to drop his voice an octave and talk in stern, monotonous tones; as the black sheep of the family, Walter Pidgeon conveys intimacy with a far-off look, like he’s trying to steel himself by recalling better films he’s been in. That Forsyte Woman postures that it’s a doomed love story between Garson and Young — capped by a lasting one between Garson and Pidgeon — but when Flynn and Leigh are the only principals not giving dismal performances, your sympathies go out to them, and you’re left praying a natural disaster rids you of the rest. Flynn has the necessary authority and intensity for Soames — and he’s not afraid to play to the seamier side of his personality. Miraculously, he convinces you that the man is fixated on Irene, when the script and the actress haven’t provided a single reason why that would be the case. And he’s so good at letting you see the insecurities behind the cruelty — insecurities that deepen with each passing year — that That Forsyte Woman becomes the rare and twisted film where you find yourself sympathetic to an abusive husband; not since Santa Fe Trail has Flynn been saddled with such a mess of a movie, and one so plagued by a mucked-up message.
That Forsyte Woman: 2
Errol Flynn: 8
MONTANA (1950)
Proof that something can be both harmless and woeful. For whatever reasons, “cattle ranchers vs. sheep herders” was a plot that fascinated Hollywood, and this is about as skeletal a version as you could imagine. (It bursts with insightful dialogue like “You talk like a sheep herder.” “How does a sheep herder talk?” “Like you’re talkin’ now.”) Alexis Smith suffers from something that, by today’s standards, would be diagnosed as bipolar disorder; Flynn suffers from something bordering on narcolepsy — he has the energy to show up, but not much more. (For one infamous shot, he was too drunk to stand up, so he and Smith played the scene lying prone in the dirty street.) Cattle queen Smith falls for Flynn, and — not realizing he’s a sheep herder — leases him some land; then she discovers “the truth” and goes into a tear: “A sheep herder!” she cries out to her housekeeper, who quickly — and wisely — exits the room: “The lowest, vilest, most contemptible creature on the face of the earth! If you could’ve seen him standing there smirking! If I had a gun, I would’ve blown him in two!” She breaks lamps and throws pillows at items offscreen, all of which come crashing to the floor, and she pants nearly to the point of hyperventilating. The kindest thing you can say about Smith’s performance is that it’s dutiful; the most honest thing that you can say is that it’s awful. She takes every response to such an extreme, her character comes off as irrational. Meanwhile, having discovered that the lady he’s taken a shine to has gone berserk, Flynn gallantly rips up the lease, and Smith instantly falls so hard for him — again — that she practically hurls herself at him. Then what feels like ten seconds later, one of the leaders of the community announces that although cattlemen are losing money hand over fist, there’s a huge demand for sheep, and Flynn — to his great credit — has proven that both animals can be raised on the same land. And Smith doesn’t want to hear it. She refuses to listen to a plan that could save the ranch her father built. Instead, she talks about the legacy he died for — that no sheep would ever graze on their land; she declares war and storms off. Flynn makes the movie a little dull; Smith makes it unbearable. There are no shadings to her performance; she either melts or shrieks. The pluses: the Technicolor is lovely, Ray Enright’s directing is solid, and there are some fine featured players pushing it along, even when you don’t know who they are. (Characters are introduced at the drop of a hat, then swiftly forgotten.) The film concludes with Flynn announcing his plans to march his sheep through town, and in case we don’t know what’s happening, there’s a town crier on hand to yell, “The sheep are coming! The sheep are coming!” (He’s less a Paul Revere type than someone with an overwhelming need to state the obvious.) Smith makes her way to the center of town and plants herself there — feet shoulder-width apart, in a forest-green skirt and boots, like some third-rate reject from a road company of Annie Get Your Gun. She announces she’ll shoot Flynn if he brings his sheep through, and you pray the sheep march in such numbers that they trample her. Spoiler that’s not really a spoiler (because who cares anyway?): ultimately she shoots Flynn, but the minute she does, she realizes how much she loves him, and promptly forgets about the cattle-sheep wars, as if it were all a MacGuffin of Hitchcockian proportions. As bad as Flynn is when he’s not trying, Smith overcompensating is worse.
Montana: 4
Errol Flynn: 3
ROCKY MOUNTAIN (1950)
Writer Alan Le May sold a screenplay to Warner Bros. and expected that — as was the norm in Hollywood — there would be little of his work left by the time it made its way to the screen. But he was pleasantly surprised, noting in a letter to his father, “Winston Miller is a very good, relatively young writer who put a final polish on the script ….. He made some excellent improvements…and stream-lined it and took some clutter out. But everything I cared about is still in there. I called up Miller and told him that he was the first collaborator whom I had ever had whom I appreciated. I was also able to say that this was the first picture I ever had my name on that I enjoyed looking at.” Le May’s pride is justified; Rocky Mountain contains some of the loveliest prose heard in a Western. Le May writes dialogue that peels back layers of character in unexpected ways. He knows how to subvert expectations, and how to surpass them. The story begins in the present, with cars whizzing down a highway, past a monument memorializing an event in Civil War history, and one man in particular. We hear Errol Flynn’s voice, and we’re swept back a century; we presume Flynn will turn out to be that man, but instead, it’s the man he’s going to meet. And when he and his team of Confederate soldiers finally behold the man on the mountain, it turns out he sent a messenger in his stead. The subversions don’t feel manufactured; it simply feels like Le May has a lot of tools at his disposal, in terms of telling a story, and lets his imagination and creativity guide him. And all the while, as Flynn and his band of soldiers are making that mountain climb, Flynn’s voiceover is telling us, “We were living the last days of our cause, unless we ourselves could turn the tide.” One of the worst trends of Hollywood throughout the ’40s and ’50s — and Le May is well aware of it — was to make the end of the Civil War seem like a noble defeat for the South, because studios were too terrified of alienating half their market. But this isn’t some charismatic soldier leading a regiment into glorious battle; this is a broken man leading a ragtag crew of seven. The folly and futility of their mission are readily apparent. Defeat hangs in the air; they feel it in their aching joints and empty bellies. They’re not going to make any difference in the War Between the States, and they know it — but they’re being pressed to soldier on, and so they do. And seemingly within moments of scaling the mountain, they have to make a decision between duty and decency — follow orders and remain where they are, or save a stagecoach in the distance that’s due to be decimated — and surprise: they don’t hesitate before choosing decency. It uplifts them in our eyes; their suffering has brought their empathy to the fore. Le May is equally adept at plot-driven misdirects and character-driven ironies, and part of the fascination of Rocky Mountain is how he interweaves the two. Le May imagines a group of Confederate soldiers whose fate is sealed by a single act of kindness, an act that quickly snowballs; after a while, it comes to feel that five minutes can’t go by without another moral quandary being thrust upon them. And still Le May finds time for anecdotes and remembrances; at times the tone grows almost elegiac, and you might just hear war referenced and redefined in ways you’ve never thought of. Flynn, for a change, doesn’t stand head and shoulders above his colleagues. The years have taken their toll on Captain Lafe Barstow, and Flynn is very willing to let us survey all the damage. And yet, when Barstow speaks, there’s a sense of peace that’s almost unsettling. This is a man who’s grown confident in his decision making, merely because the years have taught him that there’s nothing to be gained by indecisiveness. And he’s grown calm about his fate, because he understands there are forces far greater than him making the ultimate calls. Director William Keighley and cinematographer Ted McCord have nearly as many tricks up their sleeves as Le May: making the mountain ranges at once expansive and claustrophobic, finding fresh ways to position the camera across limited terrain. During daytime hours, the naturalistic lighting deliberately does Flynn no favors, letting you see precisely how his lifestyle has caught up with him — but at night, firelight and moonbeams keep catching him in unexpected ways, and the camera fastens admiringly on his profile, or cheekbones, or jawline. Keighley and McCord capture both Flynn’s age and his agelessness. And Flynn — at the end of his contract with Warner Bros. — responds by forging a character whose suffering has both exhausted and exalted him: a man who — knowing he’s on a collision course with his maker — has determined to make every brief, bitter moment count.
Rocky Mountain: 9
Errol Flynn: 10
Want more? If so, I take an expansive look at the career of one of my favorite Classic Hollywood directors, the sadly forgotten William Dieterle, here. I delve into Margaret Sullavan and her 16 films here. I serve up The 10 Best Screwball Comedies here, and The 25 Best Film Noirs here, and some of the titles are sure to surprise you. My other essays are all about TV, past and present, but if you take to TV as much as film, there's an index of the more than 100 TV essays I've written; you might see something you like, be it a drama series or a sitcom or one of my “best of” lists.
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