FLYNN (1993)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Brian Kavanagh, Frank Howson

SCREENWRITER: Frank Howson, Alister Webb

FILM STARS: Guy Pearce, Steven Berkoff, Claudia Karvan, John Savage, Wendy Matthews, William Gluth, Nicki Paull, Bruce Venables, Sandi Schultz

COUNTRY: Australia

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Roger McDonald

TYPE: Novelisation

PUBLISHER: Penguin

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1992

COUNTRY: Australia

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1992

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Drama, Biography

WORDS: Errol Flynn is Australia’s greatest acting export. Well, for me, it’s a race between him and Rod Taylor, No offence to Mel Gibson, Jack Thompson, Eric Bana, Anthony La Paglia, Guy Pearce himself or many others. I love Errol because they worked in the “golden years” of Hollywood that I have a fondness for. Of course, there were other Australians at about the same time working in front of the camera – Cecil Kellaway, Ron Randall – but Flynn “blazed the trail” as the first Australian leading man in Hollywood “A” films.

And what a leading man he was. Flynn was criticised for his (lack of) acting ability, which was a little unfair. He could act when pushed though any performance would always run last to his looks, charm and camera presence.  The camera loved him, and he had charisma that appealed to both males and females (albeit for very different reasons).

His off-screen life was notorious. Women, alcohol, bad behaviour, and not all in that order. It was all tolerated (though only just) because he was a box office draw.

Flynn knew he walked a line and occasionally stepped on either side of it. Before he was famous though there was no line. And, it was all, perhaps, inevitable that a bio pic on him would concentrate on the years before fame.

He had hinted at his exploits prior to becoming a movie star in interviews, in “Beam Ends” (1937) a semi-autobiographical novel he wrote (in 2018, the book was adapted into the film In Like Flynn), in “Showdown” (1946) a romantic adventure novel he wrote, and in his autobiography “My Wicked, Wicked Ways” (1959),

Flynn could write (he was well educated even if he didn’t finish his studies) and his roguish charm comes across as does a sometimes brutally honesty (even on himself).

His exploits prior to fame are the stuff of legend. He may not be Indiana Jones (who is?) but he had adventures outside that of the ordinary man of the day.

This film seems to draw largely on “Beams End” and “My Wicked, Wicked Ways” for stories to create the narrative,  and a lot from biography “Errol Flynn: The Untold Story” (1980) by Charles Higham for scandal, gossip and innuendo. Higham’s biography is largely rubbish. And, that is not a value statement but a majority opinion as film historians find a lot of the allegations in the biography to be unfounded, unsubstantiated and otherwise just trash journalism for sensationism and sales. Nevertheless it was a best seller at the time and is still quoted by dullards.

The film’s structure is episodic, based on a narrative that mixes some facts with a lot of rumours (or, rather, rumours of rumours) … events like Flynn killing someone and homosexual encounters are all stretched. As is Flynn the brawling streetfighter – that face would not have gone to Hollywood intact if that was the case. Then there are things that are proven wrong like Flynn was not starving on the streets at the time oof his first film. He was cast in In the Wake of the Bounty (1933) because he was Fletcher Christian’s descendant (and the movie barely a ripple outside of Australia). There is a disregard for Flynn in the script bordering on disdain.

But, even as a warts and all gossip piece it isn’t convincing because it is all over the shop. It can’t figure whether it wants to be a R rated Biggles adventure or a semi serious biography.

It is, also, limited by a small budget. Don’t get me wrong magnificence can be made on a small budget, but the film wants to (as one would expect if about Flynn’s early life) capture (and embellish) the adventure and real life swashbuckling Flynn lived in Australia and the South Pacific … and you can’t do that convincingly on a shoestring. It starts to look like bad Made for TV and not American Made for TV but Australian Made for TV. All flat, and colourless despite the location shooting.

Guy Pearce, in his second or third film (there were reshoots) is okay only which is a pity as Guy Pearce is almost always good or great. He does capture some of the youthful handsome Flynn though perhaps with some personal hesitance I doubt Flynn had. Also, his voice is too high for Flynn. His older deeper voice would have suited better.

Some of the blame on the film as released is a result of its production. The film was directed by Australian editor, sometimes director, Brian Kavanagh in 1989 on a budget of $3.5 million with shooting took place in Melbourne, Cairns and New Guinea. Frank Howson produced and wrote it.

Then:

“At the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, marketing group J and M became interested in distributing the film but thought it needed some re-shooting and some “name” stars. They provided a further $1 million for this to happen.

The film was then largely re-shot with Frank Howson stepping in as director, and some different support actors cast. Guy Pearce returned as Errol Flynn, but Rebecca Rigg, Jeff Truman and Paul Steven were replaced by Claudia Karvan, Steven Berkoff and John Savage. This caused trouble with Australia’s Actors Equity because two Australian actors were replaced with foreign ones. New scenes were shot in Melbourne and Fiji, which stood in for New Guinea.

The Fijian unit was based out of Lase Lase, about 50 km from Nadi. No Fijian women would agree to go topless, so South African actress Sandi Schultz was imported to play the role of the chief’s daughter. The Fijian men were reluctant to take their underwear off to play New Guinea natives. It was estimated about 40% of the film was reshot.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_(film)

The movie was screened at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival under the title My Forgotten Man, by which time Howson had been working on it for 30 or so months. he said:

“It was like a game of Russian roulette. You actually wondered whether you would finish the film before you went broke. I now know what Coppola must have felt like on Apocalypse Now because in the end you just keep throwing money at this thing”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_(film)

With all that effort one would want at the least a bad cult classic and it isn’t even that. It’s dull.

Russell Mulcahy’s In Like Flynn (2018) dealing with Flynn in the same era of his life, is much better though not without flaws either.

I haven’t read the book. I’m not sure if I will given some the (annoying) looseness with facts in the film. If I do I will only because I find Flynn fascinating.

Roger McDonald wrote novels of some (local Australian) note and did a few novelisations … I assume for the extra dollars. I assume it is, as normally would be the case, a novelization of the script though I don’t know which script it is based on, the first, or the revamped one. Do I want to find out? Not really

TRIVIA:

Flynn has been portrayed often in film: Duncan Regehr in My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1985) (Made for TV), Jude Law in The Aviator (2004), Kevin Kline in The Last of Robin Hood (2013) and Thomas Cocquerel in In Like Flynn (2018). Also, Peter O’Toole’s character, Alan Swann, in the 1982 film My Favorite Year (1982) and Timothy Dalton’s Neville Sinclair, in The Rocketeer (1991) are clearly on Flynn.

There is a fascination with Errol which won’t go away. It seems that as Australia rock band Australian Crawl sang in their Australian chart hit “Errol” in 1981 ….

Oh Errol I would give

Everything, just to be like him

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