No one has much good to say about this TV movie but I have an affection for it in part because it's a genre that isn't made any more - the dopey network TV biopic. Duncan Regehr is up against it to play Errol Flynn but he does okay - no one has really nailed that role, except maybe Peter O'Toole in My Favourite Year and Jude Law's cameo in The Aviator.
A lot of it is made up, sometimes outrageously - Koets is turned into an Irish adventurer - and plenty of scenes stink. It seems to have been envisioned as a mini series then shoved together. It assumes Flynn was innocent of the rape charges and seems to lack focus - there's plots about Flynn wanting more money, and wanting to Act Seriously.
But you know I did enjoy the character spotting - "oh that's Raoul Walsh.. that's John Barrymore... that's Olivia de Havilland." I liked how the piece focused on Flynn's relationship with a few people giving it some weight - Lily Damita (Barbara Hershey doing the best she can), stuntman Bill Mead, Olivia de Havilland, Jack Warner, Koets, John Barrymore.
And once you get it's heavily fictionalised I appreciate the bits they did try to get right - he did clash with Michael Curtiz, Warner did secretly like him, he did go to Spain in the Civil War, he and Damita did fight, he did sleep around, Walsh did dig up Barrymore's corpse for a joke (ok that was more an urban legend I feel but everyone says it).
I think once Flynn fans get over the fact this isn't very good they will enjoy it. I mean, at least they tried and it is about Flynn.
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