Errol Flynn

Dive Bomber (1941)

Dive Bomber (1941)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, November 2019) Calling Dive Bomber a pre-WW2 military aviation thriller is underselling it severely—shot in colour in near-documentary style, it’s a showcase for the pre-Pearl Harbor US Navy aviation, and it’s far more colourful than you’d expect from other black-and-white thrillers of the same era. (Especially given the bright peacetime livery of the planes.)  It’s also strong in terms of marquee names—Errol Flynn headlines as a military doctor trying to find a way to prevent high-G blackouts, while Fred MacMurray plays a rival officer. Behind the camera, Michael Curtiz handles the demands of a highly technical production with a veteran’s aplomb, although the film’s history is rich in on-set clashes between Curtiz and Flynn: this would end up being the last of the twelve collaborations. As far as the result is concerned, Dive Bomber is remarkable without being all that good from a strictly narrative viewpoint: the script is made to string along the aerial showcases, although the focus on medical research is not necessarily something you’d expect from an airborne military thriller. (Just ignore the omnipresent cigarettes smoked by the doctors.)  Flynn and MacMurray probably would have been better in each other’s roles, while Alexis Smith wanders in and out of the film as female lead without much to do. Still, I found Dive Bomber more fascinating than I expected—although I suspect that my fondness for techno-thrillers had a role to play in this.

They Died with Their Boots On (1941)

They Died with Their Boots On (1941)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, November 2019) It doesn’t take much for me to admit that as a boring straight white male, watching classic Hollywood movie is made easier by inherent privilege—those movies were (largely) made by straight white males, featured straight white males and incorporate the unconscious biases of straight white males. No disagreement there. I may twitch and make a note when films are unusually sexist, racist or outdated, and mention how terrible the French dialogue sounds, but in between my privilege and ready acknowledgement that “the past was another country,” I’m rarely scandalized out of my suspension of disbelief. But then comes a movie like They Died With Their Boots On to remind me that, no, I do have my limits. The problem is not that it’s an old-school western glorifying the Caucasian invasion of the West while showing them heroically battling anonymous hordes of Native Americans—there are plenty of those, and even the best come with an implicit warning for westerns: “You must accept this terrible viewpoint if you are to enjoy the film.” What puts this film over the top is that it is a (mostly inaccurate) depiction of George Armstrong Custer as a heroic, likable fellow before he died at Little Bighorn. That’s when my inner fuses blew up. Look: Custer was a terrible person—self-promoting as a symbol of crushing American Imperialism, but little more than the gun at the end of the American Government’s policy of betraying alliances and waging total war against Natives. He was a documented racist, rapist and executioner of noncombatants—and his own folly led to a well-deserved death. To see, even eighty years later, that a major studio like Warner Brothers sunk considerable expense, slick directing (from veteran Raoul Walsh) and marquee stars such as Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in this kind of project is still revolting. Worse yet—three people died in the expansive action sequences that mark the film. (But apparently no horses, a consequence of reforms following many animal deaths on the set of Curtiz’s previous The Charge of the Light Brigade.) We’re well past the point of an unjustifiable movie here. I’m a good sport for many surprising excesses, but They Died with Their Boots On is intolerable.

The Sea Hawk (1940)

The Sea Hawk (1940)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, March 2019) If you want to see swashbuckling adventures at their best, you must see an Errol Flynn film and if you want to see Flynn at his best, there aren’t many better choices than The Sea Hawk. Pitting an Elizabethan-era English hero against the might of the Spanish Armada (doubled with a few parallels to the enemy as Nazis, to whip up patriotic fervour along the way), this is not a film that deals in nuances—the heroes are virtuous, the villains are perfidious, the English ruler is just and the love interest quite lovely indeed. It works, though: the spirit of adventure runs high enough to bulldoze through any credibility objections. Take the first boarding sequences, for instance—dodgy tactics and overconfidence by the British, but it’s still a great sequence. Few genre tropes are left unused, even in the spying business back on the home front. Flynn makes a terrific hero, and Brenda Marshall is quite good as well as the beautiful Spanish girl who can’t help but fall for him. Michael Curtiz directs with energy and confidence, all the way to the landmark final sword-fight, which features energetic performances, shadowed cinematography, cut candles, broken furniture and people being thrown through windows. It’s a final sequence that caps a quintessential adventure film with generous period detail and costumes. The Sea Hawk remains quite an experience event today—it’s still at the top of the genre.

Captain Blood (1935)

Captain Blood (1935)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2018) High-sea swashbuckling is the name of the game in Captain Blood, and the film certainly delivers. A thematic prequel to the better-known The Adventures of Robin Hood, it also features Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and plenty of sword-fighting derring-do. The plot is serviceable, as a good but capable man finds himself in charge of a pirate crew. This leads to the expected hallmarks of a pirate pictures (governor’s daughter and perfidious enemies included). From a contemporary perspective, the ship battles still have quite a kick to them, which adds to the film’s overall impact. 1934 was still early in Hollywood’s blockbuster history, but you can already see most of the elements firmly in place, with the result that Captain Blood is still surprisingly accessible to modern audiences, especially those who really liked the Pirates of the Caribbean series and want something in the same genre.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, April 2018) Perhaps the best thing about 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood is how it doesn’t feel like a 1938 film at all. You can credit the colour for that: One of the first big movies shot in Technicolor with decent image detail, it’s visually distinct from other movies of the time and would remain so for nearly two decades as colour took until the early sixties to truly become the standard. As a result, the film does feel as if it’s from the 1950s, something that director Michael Curtiz’s fast narrative pace helps support. The fantastic Errol Flynn plays the lead part with bravado and wit—the sequence in which he first confronts the enemy in their castle could be transposed with few modifications a modern superhero movie. Olivia de Havilland is nearly as striking as Maid Marian, but let’s be honest—this is Flynn’s film. The other reason why The Adventures of Robin Hood still feels so modern is that it has been endlessly re-used in other modern movies. Nearly every take on Robin Hood (notably the 1973 Disney version, 1991 Kevin Costner vehicle and 1993 Mel Brooks parody) has been inspired by this one, often to the point of re-creating scenes. It does make for a film that can be readily re-watched today with a considerable amount of fun, especially for audiences (kids, for instance) where black-and-white could be an obstacle.