Thursday Movie Picks is a weekly blogfest hosted by Wandering Through The Shelves. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week, pick three to five movies and tell us why you chose them. For further details and the schedule, visit the series main page HERE►.
This week’s theme is :
*BAD BOYS*
I’m going with classic movies all starring one favourite actor,
ERROL FLYNN!
Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (June 1909 – October 1959) was an Australian-born actor during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Considered the natural successor to Douglas Fairbanks, he achieved worldwide fame for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films.
Flynn also stirred controversy for his hedonistic personal life and reputation as a womaniser.
In 1942, he was accused of statutory rape by two 17-year-old girls. Although acquitted, the trial permanently damaged his carefully cultivated screen image as a romantic leading man.
The expression “in like Flynn” is said to have been coined to refer to the supreme ease with which he reputedly seduced women.
Flynn was reportedly fond of the expression and later claimed that he wanted to call his memoir In Like Me.
The publisher insisted on a more tasteful title, My Wicked, Wicked Ways.
Errol was a true “bad boy” in real life. In reel life, his roles included pirates and lotharios, but somehow, they all turned out to be heroes. 🙂 These are three favourites.:
CAPTAIN BLOOD
(1935)Director: Michael Curtiz | Writers: Rafael Sabatini (novel), Casey Robinson (screenplay)
Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel AtwillIn 17th-century England, Irish doctor Peter Blood (Flynn) is summoned to aid Lord Gildoy, a wounded patron who participated in the Monmouth Rebellion.
Arrested while performing his duties as a physician, he is convicted of treason and sentenced to death.
By the whim of the king, who sees an opportunity for profit, Blood and the surviving rebels are transported to the West Indies to be sold into slavery.
In Port Royal, Jamaica, Blood is purchased by Arabella Bishop (de Havilland), the beautiful niece of local military commander Colonel Bishop (Atwill). Attracted by Blood’s rebellious nature, Arabella does her best to improve his situation
Eventually, Blood and his fellow slaves escape, by seizing a Spanish ship which had attacked the port, in the dead of night. They sail away and begin new lives of piracy, soon becoming famous for their buccaneer exploits.
Captain Blood was a huge hit, making Errol Flynn a star and raking in $1.4 million (a lot of money at the time). It was nominated for Best Picture, Music, Sound and Screenplay.
Michael Curtiz, who was not nominated, received the second-greatest number of votes for Best Director, solely as a write-in candidate.
📽📽📽📽📽📽📽📽
THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD
(1938)Directors: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley
Writers: Norman Reilly Raine, Seton I. Miller
Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude RainsThis film depicts the legendary Robin Hood (Flynn), aka Saxon knight Sir Robin of Locksley. In King Richard’s absence during the Crusades, he becomes the outlaw leader of a rebel guerrilla band, fighting against the oppressive regime of Prince John (Rains) and the Norman lords.
Branded as outlaws, Robin binds his men by an oath: to fight for a free England until the return of Richard, to rob the rich and give to the poor, and treat all women with courtesy, “rich or poor, Norman or Saxon”.
Robin and his band begin a war against Prince John, systematically killing the Prince’s tax collectors and any Norman nobleman or man-at-arms who abuses his power.’
They capture a large party of Normans transporting tax money extorted from the Saxons. Among Robin’s “guests” are Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Rathbone), the cowardly Sheriff of Nottingham (Melville Cooper), and the Lady Marian (de Havilland).
Disdainful of Robin at first, Marian comes to accept his good intentions and to see the reality of Norman brutality.
This was the third film to pair Flynn and Olivia de Havilland . They ultimately starred together in nine productions and developed a close friendship.
The Adventures of Robin Hood won three Acedemy Awards, for Art Direction, Editing and Original Score. It was also nominated for Best Picture.
📽📽📽📽📽📽📽📽
ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN
(1948)Director: Vincent Sherman | Writers: Herbert Dalmas (story), George Oppenheimer (screenplay)
Stars: Errol Flynn, Viveca Lindfors, Robert DouglasSpanish noble Don Juan de Maraña (Flynn) is repatriated from London to Madrid, following a diplomatic scandal caused by his dalliance with the British fiancée of a Spanish nobleman.
The Spanish ambassador in London, Count de Polan, an old family friend, sends a letter of recommendation to Queen Margaret (Lindfors) of Spain.
He requests that she provide an opportunity at the Spanish court for the rehabilitation of Don Juan’s reputation from the swirling gossip and scandal that have followed him around Europe in the wake of his many illicit love affairs.
Accepting her old friend’s suggestion, Queen Margaret thus appoints Don Juan as a fencing instructor to the Royal Spanish Academy, where he is a great success.
During his time at court, he secretly falls in love with the Queen but remains a staunchly loyal subject to her and her irresponsible and weak husband, King Phillip III.
The film was successful in Europe, earning $2,607,000. It recorded admissions of 3,763,314 in France, making it the 7th most popular film in the country that year.
However, in the US it made only $1.9 million in 1949 and $2,165,000 overall, meaning it struggled to recoup its large budget. From this point on, Warner Bros reduced the budgets of Flynn’s films.
It won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design and was nominated for Best Art Direction and Set Direction.
To view all the entries and/or add your own, click on the image.
(opens in a new window)
Have you seen any of these?
If yes, like/dislike?
What movies would you pick for this topic?
Looking forward to your input!
[Errol Flynn photo from needpix.com]
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Dog Mom and (retired) Canine Innkeeper in suburban Toronto, Canada, known as The Doglady. Former corporate workaholic. Writer, photographer, digital creator. Animal lover, music fanatic, inveterate traveller. Eternal hippie/rockchick. History, literature and cinema buff. Hockey and soccer fan. Dedicated night owl. German/Canadian binational, multilingual. Let me entertain you!
12 thoughts on “BAD BOYS: ERROL FLYNN #ThursdayMoviePicks 🎥 #InLikeFlynn”
Sigh… My first Hollywood crush. I saw every movie, read his books and other books about him and I knew if I had been alive back then and in his circle he would’ve totally seduced me too! Such a gorgeous, fun-loving, hard-living man.
Great post, Debbie. I like all the information you gave about the movies. The only one I’ve definitely seen is Robin Hood, but I’ve heard of the other two and think I might have seen Captain Blood. I thought that “bad boys” would mean characters in movies who are bad boys. It didn’t occur to me until I saw Errol that it could be an actor whose bad behavior was well known, and there are a lot of those. These days Charlie Sheen comes to mind. I’ve also heard that Toby Maguire is quite a jerk. Some good movies with bad boy characters include My Bodyguard and Stand By Me.
Love,
Janie
I need to watch more Flynn films. My knowledge of them is somewhat lacking. Not even sure if I’ve seen any of your three mentions.
Arlee Bird
Tossing It Out
There’s a lot of bad boys out there and there are always lots of girls that love bad boys. It’s a wicked circle.
Have a fabulous day, Debbie. ♥
DEBBIE ~
I’ve seen ‘Robin Hood’, but not the other two.
I guess there’s no point in reinventing the wheel, so I will just duplicate below essentially the same comment I left on Birgit’s post:
My first choice for a cinematic “Bad Boy” would be Jesus. He was so Good that the powers that be called Him bad and crucified Him. Unfortunately, I’ve not yet found a really great movie about Jesus. (The best book, though, is titled ‘Beautiful Outlaw’. Love the title; love the book!!) Therefore, I’ll go with these:
JAMES DEAN in . . . ‘EAST OF EDEN’. Yeah, I know that ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ would appear to be a more likely choice, but I much prefer the story in ‘Eden’, and Dean’s performance as Cal Trask was the best of his very brief but amazing career!
MICHAEL DOUGLAS as ‘Bill Foster’ in ‘FALLING DOWN’. That’s another one of my Top 25 favorite movies and one that I can watch at any time!
JACK NICHOLSON as ‘R.P. McMurphy’ in ‘ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST’. A Top 10 movie for me. It’s simply one of the very greatest stories and contains some of the very greatest characters that have ever appeared on the silver screen! A true cinematic masterpiece.
There are many more I could name and put on the same level as the above – such as WILLIAM HOLDEN as ‘Pike Bishop’ in ‘THE WILD BUNCH’ (the greatest Western ever made, in my opinion). But I don’t want to go on forever here, which perhaps I could. Great topic this time!
~ D-FensDogG
STMcC Presents BATTLE OF THE BANDS
I’m a big Flynn fan! I just completed his filmography a couple months ago, unfortunately with the truly awful Cuban Rebel Girls, and he made many fine films and some real crap as well. That’s pretty much par for the course though for big stars.
Of your three Adventures of Robin Hood is by far my favorite. He and Olivia de Havilland always have such strong chemistry and the production overall is one of those times when everything came together just right.
Captain Blood is full of derring do and swagger and again Errol and Olivia make the most of their scenes. I’ve also seen the follow up film his son Sean made years later during his brief stint as an actor called The Son of Captain Blood. He was very attractive but both he and the film didn’t have the same punch as the original.
Adventures of Don Juan was okay but Flynn was beginning to fray around the edges by that point and it’s no match for the earlier films. I also love his films Dodge City and Gentlemen Jim among others but he’s not a bad boy in them.
I did a mini theme within the theme and used the subject as my theme.
Bad Boy (1935)-Pool shark Eddie Nolan (James Dunn) would like nothing better than to spend his time shaking down suckers and shooting the breeze with the other sharks. But he loves Sally Larkin (Dorothy Wilson) whose parents think him a bad boy wastrel and refuse until he has a reputable job. Eddie tries the straight and narrow but is unable to find a place. Driven to despair he contemplates whether he has anything to live for. Fast paced programmer, under an hour, definitely foreshadows Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life”.
Bad Boy (1949)-Bad boy delinquent Danny (Audie Murphy) has a raft of charges against him but the judge decides to give him one more chance and sends to the reform school Variety Ranch run by caring Marshall & Maud Brown (Lloyd Nolan & Jane Wyatt) to see if he is capable of redemption. With an enormous chip on his shoulder tough nut Danny may prove to be more than even the Browns can handle.
Bad Boys (1983)-Bad boy delinquent Mick O’Brien (Sean Penn) is sent to juvenile hall after accidentally killing rival gang leader, Paco Moreno’s (Esai Morales) young brother when a con he’s running goes wrong. In the brutal prison Mick finds himself instant adversaries with the vicious Viking (Clancy Brown) and Tweety (Robert Lee Rush). While Mick fights for survival inside Paco plans to take revenge on those close to Mick, including his girlfriend J.C. (Ally Sheedy).
Watching the scenes from “Robin Hood” brought it all back from when I was a youngster.
Great choice for Bad Guy, Debbie.
Oh yes..In Like Flynn does come from this rogue. He was only 50 when he died but he looked much older. This is a man that seemed to have just about every addiction you can think of. I had to laugh at the beginning of the trailer for Robin Hood. The scene where Maid Marian is riding with Robin Hood after he saved her…look where Errol’s hand is and look at Olivia’s hand. Olivia mentioned this scene that he kept trying to have his hand just a bit too close so she had to push her hand down on his to make sure it stayed where it was supposed to. he did this more than once to her. Errol hated his mother(I think she ran out on him..have to look it up) and he had many issues with women but Olivia was one where he truly loved and respected her despite putting snakes in her bed. She liked him too but knew it was not a good idea to take it to the next level so she never gave in to her feelings..so she says but I think it probably is true. here is another anecdote, Olivia was dating John Huston and, at a party, Huston boasted to Flynn something very derogatory about Olivia(yes Huston was a bit of a jerk), so Flynn decked him and a huge fight ensued. I think Flynn lost..can’t remember but Flynn tried to hold her honour. Thankfully, Olivia split up with Huston.
I always enjoy themes within themes but I haven’t seen any of your picks this week.
One has to separate an actor’s personal life and political views from their ability to act in order to appreciate them. Sometimes, that is hard to do.
I’ve never seen Don Juan but I have seen the other two. Robin Hood is definitely in my top ten favorites. You can always enjoy someone’s performance even if you can’t stand their personal life. I used to tell that to folks who hated Elizabeth Taylor.
Hi Denise, I agree with you about separating performances from personal lives. I still enjoy Kevin Spacey’s movies, despite the fact he’s a low-life, sexual predator. Errol Flynn’s portrayal of Robin Hood was definitely some of his best work.