Errol Flynn as an Actor (cap 'A')

"Elizabeth and Essex" is my favorite performance by Mr. Flynn.

He was truly "in like Flynn" and even Bette Davis couldn't upstage a very heartfelt performance. Of course, "The Sun Also Rises" is touted as his best but he was really playing himself in that one (a drunken rouge).

I could have seen Flynn actually take some of Gregory Peck's roles -- I believe he would have been a better Captain Ahab in "Moby Dick" and would have come off well in even "The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit" where I found Peck a little too grey. It neede some more bullish savoir faire.

IMO Flynn was a far better actor than Peck. Peck could be admired for his humaneness (Flynn could not, from all I read), but it took all of the skill that John Huston had as a director to make him believable as Capt. Ahab. Flynn might have been good in the role.

That boyish charm I spoke of also comes across well in Charge of the Light Brigade, an otherwise dreadful movie. He is far more believable in the romantic scenes than in the action sequences. All the shooting and riding and fighting seems to be forced.

Peck reached such peaks in "Gentlemen's Agreement," "To Kill and Mockingbird" and "Roman Holiday" that Flynn wouldn't have been cast in under the remotest circumstances that when he failed as in "Moby Dick," it didn't remove him from the stature, at least in my book, of one of the ten best actors of two decades of film. Stars in the Golden Age of Hollywood had indelible styles to their acting that sticks in our minds as a presence and persona that's hard to shake. Today's actors are more versitile and the leading man roles less perdictable. As far as I was concerned, Kevin Spacey was the leading man in "The Usual Suspects" -- the film revolved around him (although we don't fully know how much until the end). The studio placed him in competition as a supporting actor as I think they felt he had the best chance of winning. He did.

Flynn was really seldom miscast (I can't even name a role that he didn't fit). There just wasn't a great deal of emotional depth to any of the characters save Essex in "Elizabeth and Essex" and his role in "The Sun Also Rises." Poor agenting and a rather stolid organization in casting films at that time kept him from getting roles that would have shown off his acting prowess more fully.

I'd have to say he's on the my same list of favorite actors from the same two decades (40's and 50's) that Peck is included. You know, Flynn could have played the protaganist in "The Big Country"
and likely come off entirely different from Peck's rather Stodgy performance (upstaged grandly by Burl Ives!)

BTW, it was the make up that sunk Ahab, not the whale. Atrocious -- it looked like they were half way to making him up in full drag.

Yeah, agree with what you say, Lightwizard. I didn't really mean in my post that Flynn was 'miscast' in the sense in which that word is usually understood. What I meant was -- as you say -- that he was never given the roles which would have shown off his undeniable talent. I grew up thinking of him as a swashbuckler, no more no less. And that's unfair.

I knew some friends of his when I lived in Hollywood curing my UCLA days and he also reiterated in his "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" that he bemoaned the fact that he was type cast. He was a pretty boy (even more so in person) and amoral as Hell (he was definitely bi-sexual and the link to Tyrone Power I can say is very close to the truth). His Essex role was not as much swashbuckling as playing an anti-hero and an obsessed lover who nevertheless would not bend his principals. Very much like the historical Essex.
Of course, in "The Sun Also Rises" it was Flynn personified. He was a rogue and an iconoclast. He was smarter intellectually than most people know.

Merry Andrew: I agree with you. Flynn was never in the early days given the chance to show off his true acting ability, except for Cry Wolf, and a solid performance in Edge of Darkness, - and later as Soames in That Forsyte Woman - but who would have filled his shoes? There were no car chases and adventures in space then. We needed pirates and cowboys and WWII War heroes . Gary Cooper was a fine cowboy and soldier, but doublet and hose? Nobody ever looked as good as Flynn in costume - not even Tyrone Power. And the added attraction was Flynn's voice. When Flynn said "Welcome to Sherwood Forest, My Lady", my heart melted. Was there ever another Robin Hood who could compare to Flynn? Perhaps, the very fact that Flynn never came across as "hammy" , for lack of a better word, is an indication of his acting ability. Flynn's first actual acting experience was performing for The Northampton Group, in England for a period of 18 months (a variety of roles from Shakespeare to Bulldog Drummond) before being discovered by an agent from Warner Bros. Flynn once described himself as "a bit of color in a dull world" and indeed he was that on screen. Offscreen, well LW's already told that story.

Raggedy, I think you've hit the nail on the head. Flynn was never hammy. Whether he was playing Robin Hood or Gen. Custer or Capt. Blood, he came across as completely natural. In the 1940s, it was a welcome change from the histrionics of the stars of the silents.

Sorry buckos. He was MAJOR ham in my book. But that's the type of actor he was and take it or leave it, I say.

If you're speaking of the kind of film he was given and the directorial "flourishes" with using his suave, brash manner and his good looks, you could be right that he often was perceived as over doing it. I think it was the characters. "Robin Hood" also gave Kevin Costner the opportunity to "ham" it up which he is capable of doing as well as grossly understating a performance. In "The Private Lives Elizabeth and Essex," Flynn had calmed down himself to a great degree and Michael Curtiz ("Casablanca") had stressed more intimate direction even though there was some melodramatics involved. Bette Davis rather camped it up as Elizabeth and made Flynn's performance even more cool and reserved. I think I'd go with flamboyant on some of his performances with a Cordon Bleu overtone (a little ham and cheese).

George Cukor had a way of bringing out the 'ham' in Errol. But Flynn's natural acting style was...well...natural.

George was always able to bring out any actor's finesse for a part. If this was interpreted as "hamming it up," I can't argue with someone else's perception. He's still one of Hollywood's legendary directors even if some of the male actors had a problem with him (especially Clark Gable in "Gone With the Wind" -- perhaps George attempted to nibble on one of those ample ears!) Canned laughter:

At that period in his life, Clark wouldn't let anyone but Fleming to direct him.

That and his admitted homophobia.

Undoubtedly, a factor re Cukor. But Fleming could do no wrong in Gable's eyes. Wasn't he actually like the fourth director brought in on GWTW because of Gable's unwillingness to work with anyone else?

I know Selznick went through writers like crazy but I think Cukor was the only director pre-Fleming. The shots of the opening of the film are still those directed by Cukor and several shots within the film. Gable again showed his problem with working with a gay man with "The Misfits." He wasn't at all comfortable with Montgomery Cliff. John Wayne was ready to make mince meat out of Cliff on the set of "Red River" and then decided he was turning in such a great performance that he toned down the bad vibes.

Gable didn't have much of a problem convincing Selznick to switch to Fleming as Cukor was also not happy about working with the actor. I thing it was a mutual dissatisfaction. Fleming was really stretching himself, working nightmarish hours to put GWTW in the can along with "The Wizard of Oz." Imagine a director having those two under their belt in the same year!

i have always liked earl flynn. i have a favorite uncle who looks just like him.

especially i like that after mr flynn was accused of his dalience with underaged teenaged twins, allegedly where he struted around his boat naked before the girls in just leather boots and wielding a bull whip, his next released film was "they died with their boots on"

that is truly a man after my own heart.

Well, he was acquited. I'm not sure everyone would have that kind of luck -- Flynn must have had feline genes 'cause he did have nine lives to use up.

There's still a controvery, Merry, about just how much of the picture Selznick directed! He was a taskmaster and wrote much of the script himself.

You're referring to GWTW, right, Wizard? Yes, I realize that Selznick involved himself directly in the production process, something few people did as producers. That whole burning of Atlanta sequence, for example, was entirely his baby. He had camera booms constructed that no studio had ever envisioned before. He was on the set daily. To me, it is these technical details that make GWTW a historically important movie. I wouldm't give two cents for the soap-operish script (nor for Mag Mitchel's novel, for that matter, though it was one of my mother's faves).