This bio of the famous star has been well received in web reviews I have read. It’s probably the best book on Flynn’s entire career to date – admittedly this not that hard a thing to achieve. It gets off to an irritating start by declaring that Tasmania was settled by convicts (rather than aboriginals), and seems to derive most of its information about Flynn’s early life from John Hammond Moore’s book Young Flynn. McNulty also seems to give up when it comes to certain periods in Flynn’s life – New Guinea and his schoolboy English sojourn.
However in other areas the book is strong – especially Flynn’s writings (a topic on which McNulty is particularly skilled), travels and television work. It’s also good on his life during the 1950s. The most unexpectedly moving section was a visit Flynn made to Pompeii.
McNulty perhaps over relies on secondary sources – a mystery, since there are plenty of primary sources available that should have been relatively easy to access, such as files on his Warners movies. The definitive Flynn book remains to be written (perhaps still by McNulty, although my preference is for Patrick McGilligan) but this is still pretty good and will do until then.
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