The Star Machine

by Jeanine Basinger

  Today, Flynn is mostly remembered as a ladies’ man, a romantic figure in the movies. Sorting out his career, however, reveals that he’s “romantic” more in the swashbuckling, adventurous meaning of the term than in the love-affair department. In retrospect, it’s significant to note that romantic entanglements in a Flynn film are played down, or are peripheral, or just a soupçon in the greater stew of the action. For instance, in Dive Bomber (1941), the romantic leading lady, Alexis Smith, appears on-screen with Flynn for about two minutes near the beginning of the movie, and then disappears while he becomes a flight surgeon, leaving behind his career as a famous doctor to serve his country. She reappears for the first time about half an hour later. Lo and behold, she was married and divorced offscreen while we weren’t looking! Obviously, nothing that happens to Alexis Smith in Dive Bomber matters a bit to Flynn’s character, who has barely noticed her absence. Their relationship is given a few more minutes of screen time—and that’s the big Errol Flynn romantic situation.* In fact, in all of Flynn’s adventure movies, his romances are secondary. That’s why Olivia de Havilland—his most frequent co-star—was so important to the development of his early career. In Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Dodge City (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), and They Died with Their Boots On (1941), de Havilland convincingly presents herself as a beautiful, memorable woman in Flynn’s life, someone he is fighting for or motivated to protect.† Her looks and talent are so significant that she comes across as Flynn’s equal—and suitable partner—even though she’s given much less screen time. On-screen Flynn was always three parts adventurer to one part lover. (In some of his successful movies, such as Dawn Patrol [1938], Kim [1950], and Objective, Burma! [1945], women play almost no role at all.) It was his offscreen life that invented the infamous phrase “in like Flynn.”

  His reputation as a movie lover was undoubtedly enhanced by his romantic exploits offscreen. His private life and his on-screen type gradually blurred in the minds of his fans. This is no surprise, because the difference wasn’t all that great. The movie Flynn sailed the seas, was an excellent sportsman, rebeled against repressive forces, tried his hand at many occupations, always welcomed a dare or an adventure, and wooed—really wooed—the ladies. The real-life Flynn? He sailed the seas, was an excellent sportsman, rebeled against repressive forces, et cetera, and really wooed the ladies. The association was logical.*

  Flynn in his early days in Hollywood, the perfect definition of the term, “hunk of man.”

  Flynn’s life was the stuff that star machine publicity flacks could get into and embellish. He was born in Tasmania, to Australian parents. His father was a professor of oceanography, so Flynn was not a typical unwashed actor picked out of the bean patch. He had sophistication and background, so he knew that much of what Hollywood stood for was nonsense. When it came to academics, however, Flynn was not a chip off the old block. He left school at an early age and worked passage on ships. He was a competent sailor who loved being on the ocean. In his autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways—published to great success in 1959—Flynn described all his colorful adventures as a young sailor in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and New Guinea, where he was accused of murder. With a jaunty air, he writes that he “sent for all the law books I could get my hands on” in order to prepare to defend himself against the charges. (Since he won his case, we have to assume that in his youth, Flynn mastered the mysteries of the Anglo-Australian jurisprudence system!)

  Most people believe that Flynn broke into the movies at the star level, an overnight sensation in the title role in the hit movie Captain Blood, in 1935. However, Flynn had actually made his first movie in 1933, at the age of twenty-four, playing Fletcher Christian in an Australian version of Mutiny on the Bounty, called In the Wake of the Bounty. This experience motivated him to go to England to work as an actor; he had the looks, and he had the nerve. He worked in small rep companies, and within a year landed a role in a Warner Bros. London studio production, Murder at Monte Carlo (1935).

  The London branch of Warner Bros. saw Flynn’s potential, so in 1935 he was sent to the main office in Hollywood to be developed. The system initially followed its usual pattern. He was cast in two “tryout” movies: The Case of the Curious Bride and Don’t Bet on Blondes. Does he stand out? Well, in Bride, a Perry Mason “case” starring Warren William, Flynn played a dead body. Not much opportunity to shine. But in Blondes, also starring William, he had just enough footage to make his mark, and all the assets that would define his screen stardom are visible. He has only two scenes. In the first, he’s walking toward the camera on a golf course, with the pretty Claire Dodd on his arm. He’s easy and comfortable, focused entirely on her. He’s dressed in Hollywood’s idea of golf course high style: a bandanna around his neck, a handkerchief in his pocket, a casual sports coat and slacks, an open-neck shirt with a sweater vest. While he talks confidently about himself to Dodd, he strolls along, hands in pockets, and suavely pulls out a silver cigarette case. All his movements are natural. It’s clear Errol Flynn is utterly at home inside the movie frame. Staring at him lovingly, Dodd says, “You’re all the delicious things I like.” (Amen, the women in the audience must have been thinking.) In his second scene, he’s in a nightclub, wearing a tuxedo. In a pure comedy sequence in which William and his cohorts set him up to look as if he’s nothing but a cheap gangster, he displays a light touch, a distinct and confident manner. He’s too beautiful to look unattractive and too keen-eyed to look stupid, so he wisely does the damage to himself, acting totally bewildered but covering his confusion with great manners. It’s a perfect little screen moment. The on-screen grace, ease, and humor were clearly part of Flynn himself.

  In the meantime, Flynn was cutting a swath around town with the ladies, most notably Lili Damita, a fiery Latin movie star who would become his first wife. He had the manners and wardrobe to fit in at the highest echelons of Hollywood parties, and he attracted attention everywhere he went. However, so did other good-looking young men, and he wasn’t the first to date a prominent actress. What happened to Flynn is one of those lucky career accidents that the star machine was always ready to capitalize on. Warner Bros. was ready to shoot a lavish production of Captain Blood, based on the Sabatini best seller. The star was to be Robert Donat, a popular British actor who had already found success in such movies as The Count of Monte Cristo, in 1934. Donat was a distinguished actor who didn’t want to play in more costume dramas and who was particularly worried about Captain Blood’s dueling scenes. He suffered from asthma, and the physical exertion required couldn’t be faked by doubles. Donat refused the role, leaving Warner Bros. suddenly in need of a handsome young star who could duel and who was ready to go to work immediately. And there was the young, handsome, athletic Errol Flynn. They already had him under contract* and in their star machine; he was proving himself to be a glamour boy. Warner Bros. took a chance.

  It’s important to note that seldom did a big studio let a newcomer like Flynn carry such a big-budget picture. It could happen but rarely did. The decision turned out to be brilliant—for the studio, for the audience, and for Errol Flynn, who was born to play Captain Peter Blood. But it might have turned out differently. When Flynn was asked to step up, he was being put to the test even more rapidly than Tyrone Power, who, after all, had been born into an acting family and whose Lloyd’s of London cost less to make. The burden was all on Flynn, the knockabout kid from Down Under with only four minor movies under his belt. Could he carry the picture and become a star?

  Errol Flynn enters the screen in Captain Blood from frame right, carrying a lighted candle and dressed in a brocaded dressing gown. He’s given an immediate medium close-up and a line of dialogue: “That we’ll know better after you’ve opened the door,” a response to his housekeeper’s query as to who is knocking so late at night. Flynn’s hair is somewhat blondish, rather long. He moves with ease to the door and confidently agrees to ride out into the night to help someone in ne
ed. (He is Dr. Peter Blood.) Warners, not being stupid about audience desires, then immediately lets the audience watch the young Flynn get dressed to go on his mission—screen time well spent. He tells his housekeeper, with a jaunty air, to take care of his geraniums while he’s away. He addresses her affectionately as “my vinegary virgin.” She clucks and tells him to forget the geraniums, adding, “Won’t you ever grow up?” So right at the start is seen what everyone will later come to recognize as the character “Errol Flynn.” He’s comfortable in the richest of costumes, photographs well, tosses off zingers with ease, looks sexy, handles women, and establishes his priorities: geraniums over danger.

  In some scenes, Flynn seems unpolished in his line delivery. From time to time, he grimaces, as in his big final fight scene, something that all Hollywood actors were taught not to do. (“Hold your smile … keep your face muscles from distorting … never make faces” was a basic rule of movie star acting classes.) But when he woos Olivia de Havilland and fights his way to freedom, he carries the picture. With de Havilland he is flirty, lusty, and devilish. He kisses her without invitation and happily accepts the slap he receives for his effort. When he takes command of his fellow prisoners, urging them to rebellion, he is passionate, believable, even masterful. He looks as if he’s having a very good time doing it all. Captain Blood was a first-rate property given first-rate production values, and in it, Errol Flynn emerged as a first-rate personality with a first-rate future. He inhabited his role easily and, in 1935, became a “star overnight.” From Captain Blood onward Errol Flynn was always a star.

  Flynn, in his first big Hollywood success, as Captain Blood, standing on deck ready for anything, including fame.

  Excited by Flynn’s success, Warners rushed him into a second film directed by Michael Curtiz, who had done Blood. The Charge of the Light Brigade was released in 1936 to equal success. This time, however, Warners had time to plan what to do with Flynn, and taking no chances, they surrounded him with a roster of tried-and-true actors (Henry Stephenson, Nigel Bruce, Donald Crisp, J. Carroll Naish, Spring Byington) as well as the young and hopeful (Patric Knowles and David Niven) and kept his Blood leading lady (de Havilland). Max Steiner was hired to create his very first movie musical score for Warners, and the production values were outstanding. In Charge, Flynn validated his earlier success.

  Despite his sudden popularity, however, Flynn was subjected to the routine of the star machine. Warners, a notoriously cheap studio where actors were concerned, immediately started wondering if they were always going to have to spend a fortune on lavish costume films for Flynn. Such films were expensive to make, and Flynn would have to turn out more than one movie a year to be worth his money. They decided to test him in films that were modern and cheap to make. Even though he essentially began his career as a star in Captain Blood, the public accepted him with great joy, and his success was immediately confirmed by Charge, no one after the silent era was ever going to have a career playing nothing but swashbuckling roles. So Warners made him do what all beginners had to do: Play in a series of minor movies to prove he could carry them. “Others would have liked to make even these … quickies,” he said. “Why complain? I couldn’t have it better.”

  After the success of Charge, Flynn made four movies in 1937: Green Light, The Prince and the Pauper, Another Dawn, and The Perfect Specimen. None is a major film, although Green Light is well directed by Frank Borzage. Three of these films were in modern dress, with only The Prince and the Pauper, based on the Mark Twain story, being a costume film. Although given top billing, Flynn doesn’t appear until the second half of the movie. (He was already being used to carry a movie that starred two relatively unknown players, the Mauch Twins, Billy and Bobby.) His other films were tests of both his strength at the box office and his ability to support leading ladies. Another Dawn is purely a woman’s film, starring Warners’ resident female box office draw, Kay Francis. She is the star. Flynn is her support. He plays an army officer at an African British outpost, and Francis is torn between her love for him and her love for her husband, played by Ian Hunter. (Some choice!) Flynn looks fantastic in uniform, and Francis is stunning in white flannel coats and long slinky gowns. (They embrace while the sands blow, the natives rise up, and everything turns out okay.) The movie is a reasonably intelligent presentation of a love affair that has nowhere to go, and Flynn was anyone’s idea of a desirable lover, looking tanned and trim and super elegant. Green Light, based on a Lloyd C. Douglas novel, presented Flynn as an idealistic doctor trying to understand the meaning of life, and Perfect Specimen was a crazy comedy with Joan Blondell. In it, Flynn is slyly presented as a very rich young man who has been overly sheltered by his family, and thus knows nothing about life and women. Already he had enough of an established reputation as a lover to be able to make a movie joke about his sexual prowess.

  Flynn took on the famous role defined in silent film by Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and matched the master’s success in the gloriously produced The Adventures of Robin Hood.

  At the end of 1937, Flynn had proved he was a workable star worth Warners’ long-term investment, having successfully done costume, romance, melodrama, and crazy comedy. His career was rolling, and he had united his different roles with his own chipper manner, pushy self-confidence, and insistence on getting all the fun out of life he possibly could. Warners now knew it wanted to go all the way with Errol Flynn. His next movie was not only the one most people think was his greatest, but is inarguably one of the very best examples of a classic studio system movie. It still stands today as the best of what Hollywood could do—provide exciting family entertainment with depth of character, plus astonishing dueling scenes.

  The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) is a beloved film, revived often and to great success. It has a timeless quality, and the beauty of its co-stars (Flynn and de Havilland, paired again) is undiminished. They don’t look dated or silly—even though Flynn has to dash around in green tights and leap onto tables and tree branches. The production values are frequently cited as among the very best in Hollywood’s history: direction by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, with location shooting for forest scenes; superb art direction and editing, both of which won Oscars; a brilliant and memorable score by the great Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who also won the Oscar for it; an excellent, well-paced script by Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller that manages to avoid the pitfalls of both literary adaptation and costume drama dialogue; superb Technicolor photography; and, finally, a supporting cast to die for. The list of superb character actors is amazing: Claude Rains as the evil Prince John, Basil Rathbone as Sir Guy of Gisbourne, Melville Cooper as the Sheriff of Nottingham, Eugene Pallette as Friar Tuck, Alan Hale as Little John, Patric Knowles as Will Scarlett, with Una O’Connor, Montagu Love, Herbert Mundin, and Ian Hunter thrown in for good measure.

  Warner Bros. took one risk with Robin Hood—Flynn was being asked to re-create a role that had been owned by Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in the silent era. It was the ultimate test of the truth of Flynn’s stardom. But Flynn, like Fairbanks, had the zing to give the role a joyous kind of life—and the addition of color, sound, and music put this Robin Hood into the front ranks of entertainment. As a movie star, Errol Flynn was home free.

  This didn’t mean he was off the hook on studio assignments, of course. Consider the very dumb role he has to play in Footsteps in the Dark (1941). This is light comedy coupled with a romance coupled with a murder mystery—generic insurance. Flynn plays a super-wealthy young man who, bored by investment banking, is secretly the writer of lurid mysteries. The role is wafer thin, the script shaky, and the directing routine. Luckily, Flynn is surrounded by a strong cast: Brenda Marshall as his wife, Lucile Watson as his mother-in-law, Ralph Bellamy as the main villain, Allen Jenkins as his loyal sidekick and partner in pseudonymous writing. And as if they weren’t enough, there’s Alan Hale as the head policeman, Lee Patrick as a striptease artist, Turhan Bey as a mysterious servant, with Jack La Rue, William Frawley, G
rant Mitchell, and Roscoe Karns—an amazing list of big-name character people.

  Flynn can make the nonsense work. He cuts a suave figure, with not one sign of the dissipated bloat he would soon enough be picking up. There’s not even a hint of a bag under an eye. His little pencil-thin mustache sits jauntily over his crooked smile, and he knows just how to move and position himself. He’s slender, handsome, and impeccably dressed in beautifully cut and tailored handmade suits. When he enters the apartment of a potential suspect, the turbaned manservant (Bey) looks him over, taking in his jaunty bow tie, his crisp handkerchief correctly placed in his pocket, his careful haircut, his manicured nails, and his perfect profile, and says, “With a gentleman I’m happy to discuss anything.”

  In Footsteps, Flynn has three aspects to his character: the loving, romantic husband of Brenda Marshall; the second persona of the mystery writer who hangs out with the police and is often in physical danger; and a pseudonymous disguise he undertakes, Lucky Tex Gilbert, an oilman with a southern accent who sets out to woo the stripper, Blondie White, played, with her usual skill at capturing the truly low-down dame, by Lee Patrick. The film thus becomes a menu of Flynn’s abilities. But what does the audience choose most often? Soon enough the studio learned that the audience didn’t want Flynn doing the schnook role, and his impersonations of pseudo characters like Tex would disappear. Tongue-in-cheek for Flynn as an adventurer was okay with fans. Self-ridicule was not. At least, not yet.