Errol Flynn Goes to War (part 2)

The second half of my look back at the 33 films Errol Flynn did for Warner Bros. between 1935 to 1950: from his first starring role (in Captain Blood) to his final film before he began to explore freelance options, Rocky Mountain. (In 1947, Warner Bros. signed a new contract with Flynn giving him the right to make one film annually away from the studio, beginning in 1950. In 1954, they terminated his contract.) For the first 18 films (through They Died With Their Boots On) — and my appraisal of Flynn’s formidable talents — click here. We now resume with our nation’s entry into World War II, and sadly, one of Flynn’s biggest stinkers.

Dissecting William Dieterle

A fuller version of this essay — complete with photos, filmography, footnotes, etc. — is now available at Amazon, as an e-book entitled William Dieterle: A Forgotten Giant. Click here to purchase.

Is there another Classic Hollywood director whose reputation has been as tarnished by time as William Dieterle (1893-1972)? He helmed his first two Hollywood films in 1931 and, by year’s end, was already being praised as a prodigy. (The New York Times applauded his “artistry and fertile brain,” predicting he “could make a poor story interesting and a good story a masterpiece.” Variety forecast “a worthy spot in the megaphoning field.”) By the time 1932 drew to a close, he had another half-dozen titles in release, and the response from critics grew reverential. They eyed him as an original: a storyteller with a keen understanding of human nature; a jack-of-all-trades who excelled in every genre, from romantic comedy to costume drama; and an innovator whose camera roamed with impressive freedom, at a time when the technical constraints of the early sound era typically held movement to a minimum.

Errol Flynn Goes to War

This essay has nothing to do with Errol Flynn going to war. (He tried to enlist in every branch of the service during WWII, but was declined for health reasons.) It’s not even about the five wartime films he starred in between 1942 and 1945. It started that way — thus the title — but once I saw those five, I wanted to see more of Flynn, and ending up viewing all the films he did for Warner Bros. between 1935 to 1950: from his first starring role in Captain Blood to his final film before he began exploring freelance options, Rocky Mountain.

The 10 Best Screwball Comedies

In 1967, Pauline Kael wrote a seminal piece in The New Yorker entitled “Movies on Television,” examining what it was like to revisit films on the small screen: which ones survived the transfer largely unscathed, and which lost much of their majesty and meaning reduced to screens a fraction of their original size.