Movie review - "My Wicked Wicked Ways" (1985) **

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.

Dorothy Malone RIP - And a Top Ten

1) The Big Sleep (1946) - Malone is only in this for two scenes but does them with Humphrey Bogart and is sensational (aspiring actresses could do worse than to study these scenes of how to make a big impact in a short space of time).

2)The Fast and the Furious (1955) - not the Vin Diesel classic but a 1955 car chase flick which was the first feature Roger Corman ever produced - Malone is v likekable (Malone also appeared in Corman's directorial debut, Five Guns West).

3) Battle Cry (1955) - a melodrama about WW2 based on a best seller which New Zealand audiences will especially find interesting (part of the film is set there) - Malone has a surprisingly sexually frank fling with a young soldier played by Tab Hunter.

4) Sincerely Yours (1955) - Liberace's attempt at big screen stardom with Malone as his love interest (in the space of three years Malone steamed up the screen opposite Liberace, Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson...) - a fairly terrible movie but fascinating to see Liberace act in a melodrama (he took the blame for this film's failure but the script was as much at fault).

5) Artists and Models (1955) - for me the best Martin and Lewis film a really terrific fun comedy with Malone well matched with Martin and Shirley MacLaine perfect for Lewis.

6) Written on the Wind (1956) - Malone won the Oscar for this but I rewatched it recently and felt her performance did not hold up that well - check out her stroking the oil rig at the end (the same team then made The Tarnished Angels)

7) Too Much Too Soon (1958) - Malone mostly played "the girl" in films but her Oscar saw her get a real chance here, as Diana Barrymore, in what I feel is a pretty decent film - stolen by Errol Flynn as John Barrymore.

8) The Last Voyage (1960) - Malone's role isn't much (something you could say about a lot of her career) but they actually sunk a real ship for this film which is cool.

9) Fate is the Hunter (1964) - a Rod Taylor film where Malone has a one scene unbilled cameo - for years I thought it was a mirage but then later on confirmed it that yes it was her - this is a pretty good movie.

10) Beach Party (1963) - most film fans remember Frankie and Annette and forget or don't realise Robert Cummings and Dorothy Malone had quite big parts in this film, the first in the series.
Oh and she's in Basic Instinct (1992) too

Movie review - "Svengali" (1931) **

John Barrymore hams his arse off as the famous impresario who dazzles a young woman and makes her an opera star. Carmel Myers is the first one - but she rejects him when she won't give him money. So then he goes for Marian Marsh, with whom he falls in love - although he falls for super wet Bramwell Fletcher (who ironically would marry Barrymore's daughter Diana). It's like a vampire movie in many regards - I think we're meant to hope that Marsh goes for Fletcher but he's just as possessive in his own way. Barrymore barnstorms his way around. There's surprisingly little opera singing and some stiff direction.

Movie review - "Grand Hotel" (1932) *** (warning: spoilers)

MGM at its most Irvin Thalberg-y, a big glossy all star melodrama. I didn't realise how few Greta Garbo movies I'd actually seen watching this - she's a terrible ham, beautiful and charismatic to be sure, but emoting all over the place and chewing up the scenery as the tragic ballerina, one minute about to kill herself then madly in love.

Equally playing to the back row are Wallace Beery and Lionel Barrymore, as a dodgy businessperson and dying clerk respectively. Lionel is especially hard to take, ACTING all over shop, making dumb pronouncements about money and being a little man. You wish someone would pull out a gun and end him early.

Far far better are John Barrymore, in a genuinely sensitive and restrained performance as the thieving Baron (he's terrific), and Joan Crawford, as a kind of secretary slash model slash mistress (the film is pre Code and thus allowed to be a bit racy.... there's also Garbo about to commit suicide, Barrymore and Garbo pretty clearly have sex, Beery kills J Barrymore brutally).

Lewis Stone is irritating as a Greek chorus as is Jean Hersholt as a porter. The art direction is impressive. Dated in many ways but still worth watching.

Movie review - "Maytime" (1937) *** (warning: spoilers)

Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald at their MGM peak, in an entertaining melodrama musical which takes place in never never land on the studio backlot. It starts with an aged MacDonald giving a young couple some relationship advice then flashes back to her own operatic career. She is loved by her manipulative manager (John Barrymore) and decides to marry him for the sake of fame and her career.... despite falling in love with another singer (Nelson). She and Nelson are reunited but Barrymore gets out his gun... Poor Jeanette is left to mourn him and to wait until death.

In other words it's the same plot in a way as Barry Manilow's Copacabana or even James Cameron's Titanic. It worked then and it works here, with plenty of songs. I'm really starting to like MacDonald - she had spark and flair, a sense of naughtiness as well as class; Nelson Eddy is bland lunk but he does work well with MacDonald. Plenty of production values, including an elaborate re-creating of small town America (which tended to be MGM's specialty).

Movie review - "Midnight" (1939) ***1/2

One of those movies that are highly regarded, and you can certainly see the care that's gone into it, but I felt it was over-rated. Maybe I'm just resistant to the charms of Claudette Colbert - oh she's okay, capable and sort of charming and all that, she's just not my cup of tea. Neither particularly is Don Ameche. She's a chorus girl on the make in Paris and he's an impoverished taxi driver. Her mercenary nature and his impoverished aristocratic background bear the unmistakeable mark of Billy Wilder, who co-wrote the script.

This has a nice ensemble feel - Colbert is the leads, but there's also John Barrymore on hand as an ally, plus Mary Astor and Frances Lederer. Lederer has quite a big role - I didn't recognise him from anywhere before. He falls in love with Colbert, which annoys Astor who is his lover despite being married to Barrymore. I kind of felt sorry for Lederer - I mean, he seems to really like her and he seems like a nice guy. The romance between Colbert and Ameche also seemed a little undercooked, although I loved the scene where she convinces the others she's insane.

It's a silly story with a light touch and playing - if you're into that whole Lubitsch school you'll probably love it. I enjoyed the movie just not wild about it.

Movie review – “Dinner at Eight” (1933) ****1/2 (warning: spoilers)

MGM at its pinnacle – an all-star adaptation of a Broadway hit, produced by the boss’ son in law (David O Selznick), directed by George Cukor, a Kaufman-Ferber play adapted by Frances Marion and Herman Mankiewicz. 

 

This is really wonderful, a lot better than I remembered. It’s slightly happier than the original play – for instance tycoon Wallace Beery decides not to take over Barrymore’s shipping line – but is still quite dark: John Barrymore still kills himself; Lionel Barrymore is still going to die in a few years because of his heart; his daughter (Madge Evans, who I’d never heard of, is quite good) has to marry a man she doesn’t really love; it’s clear that married Jean Harlow and engaged Madge Evans are sleeping with men they’re not supposed to (doctor Edmund Lowe and John Barrymore).

 

Some feel that Marie Dressler gives the best performance, but I found she mugged a little. The Barrymore brothers are touching in their different roles, Billie Burke is funny (especially when she moans as if she has all the problems in the world, unaware what is going on around her), and Beery and Harlow are brilliantly hilarious together as a married couple – Beery the uncouth tycoon, smart about business but clueless about his wife; Harlow his trashy wife, who bullies the maid, puts on a cutesy voices, and is banging her doctor. 

 

May Robson, as a maid enlisted to being a dinner guest, feels tacked on, and I don’t think we needed to actually see any scenes at the dinner itself – it would have been just as effective being all lead up. Wonderful final line (not in the play incidentally).

Play review – “The Royal Family” by Kaufman and Ferber (warning: spoilers)

Wanted to read this after listening to the radio version, which seems to have been reasonably faithful – although the characters of the middle aged brother (a good actor who is a bit lazy and getting on) and his not-very-talented wife were reduced, for time presumably. Reading the full length bit I was struck how small that part of Tony Cavendish was – the John Barrymore part. He just sort of waltzes in being pursued by creditors then waltzes out again (the Theatre Guild version added a section of Tony overseas).

The guts of the drama is given to Julie Cavendish, a middle aged great actor, Tony’s sister (I can’t remember if she was divorced or widowed), mother of young Gwen who is about to go into the family business; she’s worried about Gwen marrying a non actor, and is attracted to the idea of wedding an old beau who wants her to give up the stage and live in rustic splendour in South America. Pressure comes from her mother, another old time actor.

Like other Kaufman-Ferber plays famous for their comedy, Dinner at Eight and Stage Door, this some effective serious moments, notably the death of the mother at the end (on stage, no less). It’s interesting from a feminist point of view – when Gwen wants to give up her career for marriage her mother and grandmother can’t believe it, but later on mum encourages her to do just that… but later Gwen goes back to the stage.

This isn’t as good as the later Ferber-Kaufman plays – it takes too long to get going (so much business involving servants which doesn’t pay off), there isn’t enough story, and they miss an opportunity with the Tony Cavendish character. But it’s still entertaining and you could imagine would be fun to watch with the right people cast as the Cavendishes.

Radio review – TGA#15 - “The Royal Family” (1945) **

Kaufman-Ferber play about a family based on the Barrymores – the intro tries to draw comparison with other actor families, like the Lupinos in England, but the fact the eldest son also has a film career and a capacity to get in the headlines leads one to assume it’s the Barrymores. Frederick March (who played the role on Broadway and film) is effective as John Barrymore equivalent – he’s the only name in a cast that really needs names to work, or at least big actors. The two main plots concern John B getting sued for breaching a movie contract and fighting off romantic entanglements, his sister being pursued by a rich man and hating acting, and her daughter romancing a young man and deciding whether to leave the stage. There’s also a grand dame character who loves acting – her death is genuinely moving. They didn’t get the timing of this right and finish early – the last five minutes is a classic music score.

Book review – “Hollywood” by Garson Kanin

Fun, but surprisingly not as good as Kanin’s books about Maugham and Hepburn/Tracy. Maybe Kanin is uncomfortable writing about himself – he seems drawn to personalities stronger than himself (although as a highly successful writer-director he must have had strength); more time seems devoted to characters like Harry Cohn and Sam Goldwyn than Kanin himself. 

 

And sometimes having characters in the book telling stories via dialogue doesn’t feel real, at least not in the way it did in the Maugham and Hepburn/Tracy books (eg Carole Lombard). (Could this be because Kanin wasn't keeping a journal back then?

 

Still, there are some great stories, like getting John Barrymore to lift his game by having all the crew on The Great Man Votes refer to him as “Mr Barrymore”; Barrymore getting annoyed at a child actor who was pulling focus and throwing her across a sound stage; Goldwyn saying “no one knows anything” (‘you believe, you feel, but you don’t know’) years before William Goldman; Vivien Leigh being jealous of Greta Garbo talking to Laurence Olivier; negotiating contracts with Harry Cohn and Goldwyn; dealing with the temperamental Charles Laughton on They Knew What They Wanted (constantly afraid of saying the wrong thing, “finding” a performance in the vineyards the night before a shoot and having to go back during the shoot to find it again – only to have Kanin ruin the takes by constant sneezing); Ginger Rogers aggressively going after the role of Elizabeth in John Ford’s Mary of Scotland (you know something? She wouldn’t have made the film worse); Sam Goldwyn on the importance of story; Kanin visiting a brothel where all the hookers look like movie stars (years before LA Confidential – Kanin even admits he’d sleep with the hookers); Ginger Rogers being distracted by an extra on the set of Tom, Dick and Harry and asking him to be removed, only to marry him later on; MGM executives at lunch all comparing pills.

Radio review – Cavalcade – “The Great Man Votes” (1941) **

Orson Welles would seem to be an obvious choice to step into John Barrymore’s last decent film role, a drunken grandfather who finds himself to be a one-man electorate in a crucial eletion, but actually he’s not. Both could play great bombastic hams, but Barrymore was a famous drunk who could convey weakness; Welles loved a tipple but he wasn’t (too my knowledge) an alcoholic – and he always conveyed strength (corrupt strength to be sure, but strength). The story remains entertaining; there is a pompous finale where the narrator talks about the Bill of Right and how great American is – this aired shortly after Pearl Harbour, which explains this.

Radio review – CP#16 - “Twentieth Century” (1939) ***1/2

Orson Welles wasn’t the most natural comedian in the world but he’s perfectly cast here as the bombastic, egomaniacal Leo Jaffe – as well cast as John Barrymore in the film (I guess Welles had a baby face around this time but it doesn’t matter on radio). Elissa Landi tries but doesn’t quite match Carole Lombard (she doesn’t have any of Lombard’s great hysterical scenes), but you don’t really notice as the piece is such a great star vehicle. This is more effective than many radio versions of stage plays because there's so much going on. Great fun.

Movie review – “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” (1921) ***

We’ve only second hand accounts of John Barrymore’s supposed greatness on stage, but he was definitely at one point a handsome devil, as demonstrated in this silent film. Without the puffiness and bloating of later years, his profile is more pronounced and his acting more energetic. He plays the devoting hard working scientist who after a visit to a racy nightclub (Nita Naldi is dancing) becomes obsessed with the idea of dual natures. He concocts a potion and after a great transformation scene – becomes crazed Hyde.

Like many accounts of this tale the evil things Hyde gets up to are kept kind of vague apart from drinking and roaming the streets (at one stage it seemed to hint he was going to try for a threesome with two girls but this is shied away from; he does kill someone but the guy deserves it). There are some pretty girls in the support cast, a memorable moment where Barrymore lies in bed and has hallucinations of a spider (bit close to the bone, eh, Barrymore?), and it stands up as a solid drama with a dash of horror. But the chief attraction is the bravaura performance by its talented star.

Radio review – Peter Bogdanovich interviews Orson Welles

Fascinating series of interviews which formed the basis of Bogdanovich’s excellent book about Welles. He chats in particular about his relationship with Gregg Tolland on Citizen Kane, his plan to make a film about Jesus Christ, casting Alan Ladd in Kane, casting Tim Holt in Magnificent Ambersons (which he still defends – someone should do a study of Holt one day, he’s got a lot of classic films on his resume); the troubles filming Othello (setting scenes in Turkish baths to do it without costumes); etc.

Welles makes a lot of statements, some where you go “gee I dunno” (He argues that directors do their best work in their 20s and 70s), others which I think is dead right (everyone knows an Iago in their life).

He is a bit defensive about the lack of commercial success of his films (blames Kane on poor distribution, says Lady from Shanghai got its money back "but was no Gilda and they wanted Gilda"). Says there were only a few cuts to Lady from Shanghai, which surprised me – he takes the blame for what’s bad about this; refutes Bogdanovich’s claim that War of the Worlds was bad luck for him (credits this for the Campbell sponsorship and movie career); talks about being inspired for War of the Worlds by a priest’s claim that communists had taken over London (he perhaps takes a bit too much credit for this broadcast – poor old Howard Koch the author isn’t mentioned); chats about his passion for “the funnies”.

Welles seems to have been friends with or at least known everyone – Preston Sturges, Thornton Wilder, Sam Goldwyn, Barrymore. He’s constantly telling stories along the lines of “of course I knew Preston”.

Bogdanovich was asking questions for posterity, not television, so his queries tend to be drawn out and stumbling – but they are mostly pretty good and he has a warm rapport with Welles.

Radio review – CP#5 – “Counsellor at Law” (1939) **1/1

Orson Welles gets a real chance to flex his acting muscles playing a successful lawyer who is threatened by an event from his past. It’s the same role played by John Barrymore on screen, entirely appropriate since the two men were mates and had a similar hammy charisma (I’m not sure if they played the same role many times; I think Welles played Hamlet on radio, and both were up for the lead in The Man Who Came to Dinner.)

Welles isn’t very convincing as a son of an immigrant mother who speaks with an accent (played here by Gertrude Berg), but he is well cast as a lawyer who is successful but feels as though he is a charlatan. He has to have something of a nervous breakdown, something we’re not used to seeing – sorry, hearing – from Welles, who is best known for acting with charming aplomb. He doesn’t quite hit it out of the park – he tries, it’s not bad, but for me there is something in Welles’ acting which stops him from reaching the top rank. I think he was a great star, a tremendous personality – but agree with Simon Callow that something happened in his development as an actor to stop him going all the way. Aline McMahon reprises her screen role as the ever-loving secretary.

Movie review – Invisible #3 – “The Invisible Woman” (1941) ***

After two invisible man films, Universal decided to play it for comedy – this was based on a story by Kurt Siodmark and Joe May, but was rewritten by, among others, writers who later worked for Abbott and Costello.

The best known member of the cast is John Barrymore, who plays the professor who invents invisibility. Yet again Barrymore spoofs his boozing reputation – his first scene have him tippling in the lab - but he is fun to watch. Virgina Bruce plays the title role, a model who is dissatisfied with her humdrum life (1940s feminism!) who answers an ad to be invisible from Barrymore. She uses her powers to get revenge on her boss, and comes up against some comic gangsters.

The humour is quite risque – you never really think of Claude Rains and Price being naked in their invisible man movies (apart from references to being cold) but you’re very conscious Bruce is nude. She’s always stripping her clothes off, and she flirts with John Howard (fun as a playboy).

This movie is very similar to modern day fantasy romantic comedies like Just My Luck - likeable girl discovers something extraordinary and uses it to help beat baddies and get the man of her dreams. As such its one of Universal's most fascinating pictures. It's a bit creaky and perhaps there should have been at least one villain who was a serious threat rather than comic, but the cast give it there all and I enjoyed it a lot.

(NB Maria Montez is in it and has one line.)

Movie review – “Too Much Too Soon” (1958) ****

Dorothy Malone had been around for ages before nabbing an Oscar for a showy support role in Written on the Wind. This must have seemed life a sure-fire follow up, a biopic about a famous yet tragic female star…a reliable formula in the 50s (Interrupted Melody, Jeanne Eagles, I’ll Cry Tomorrow).

She gives a fine performance though she’s overshadowed by Errol Flynn in a role that was always going to steal the notices – John Barrymore, the real life Flynn’s old boozing partner. Flynn never had Barrymore’s reputation for a great actor but he’s perfectly cast – full of charisma, charm and sadness, with a beautiful speaking voice and fondness for the bottle.

Everything Flynn does is memorable – John Barrymore asking Diana to tell all about her life and him getting bored straight away, Flynn performing ‘once more into the breach’ soliloquy to a neighbouring yacht while a bit pissed and getting increasingly roused (he’s not magical but he does not disgrace himself) – then abandoning his daughter, showing his daughter around a near-empty mansion, going on a massive drunk leading to his minder having to tackle him, a scene where he makes eyes at a young starlet… played by Beverley Aadland, his fear at getting the lead in The Man Who Came to Dinner (one of the few films to use its actual name), a drunken phone call to his ex wife, his final plea for Diana to stay. One hour in he disappears.

It’s only after his death that Diana hits the bottle (out of guilt) – and starts rooting around too, seducing Effram Zimbalist Jnr. He married her but when he goes off to make a film, she starts becoming a real party girl, dancing at parties in her swimsuit, hooking up with tennis pro Ray Danton. He dumps her when mum cuts her off and she hooks up with a nice other actor who is revealed to be an alcoholic and they hit the booze together.

There are other good scenes too – Diana getting big applause on her first appearance on stage (and her mother saying – all too accurately – that she’s a second rate actor and is only getting applause for her name), sexy Malone dancing in her swimsuit at her party, Ray Danton abusing Diana while smacking a tennis ball off a wall near her head (and eventually smacking her in the face with that ball – great scene), Diana doing a nightclub act while trashed (she starts off doing impersonations and ends up stripping).

I’ve always remembered the ending where Diana is inspired to meet up with a publisher by an old boyfriend who turns out to be bald. She may be a drunk but she’s not bald! As a baldy I admit on one hand to be a little bit offended – but it’s also a warm, human, true and different end. “Once all I had was money. I’ve got something else now – I’m a real nice guy” – that’s a nice thing for baldy to say.

Malone isn’t quite convincing as the young Diana but once she grows up and gets to flash that lovely hair she improves. She’s particularly effective once she starts rooting  – the Malone specialty.

One gripe – there’s too much music in the background during all the scenes. And there’s a strain of misogyny through it – Diana’s early boyfriend complains that because she’s rich he can’t surprise her with things and Zimbalist refuses to be a kept man, whereas Danton doesn’t.

It’s been a while since I read Diana Barrymore’s book but from memory they changed an awful lot. One memorable scene from the book which didn’t make it – John taking his daughter out while at school with one of her friends, and ending up making out with that friend – that’s enough to make you wish they’d make another version of this story. Also she was married to Bramwell Fletcher, a fellow alcoholic best remembered now for appearing in The Mummy, and had a fling with Victor Mature, was under contract to Walter Wagner.

Maybe this doesn’t deserve four stars – but I really liked it and loved certain scenes. Fun is muted with the knowledge that Barrymore killed herself soon after the book came out.

(Check out this fascinating interview between Mike Wallace and Barrymore shortly after the book came out. She says she can’t give up drinking just yet. Come on, Diana…)

Book review - "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" by Errol Flynn

The only fan letter I wrote to an author in my life was to George MacDonald Fraser, who kindly wrote back to me answering some of my questions. One of them was who was the ideal actor to play Flashman, and he said "the late Errol Flynn by a mile". Errol never played Flashman type characters on screen, really, except for arguably in The Adventures of Don Juan and Crossed Swords, but he certainly was one in real life if his memoirs are to be believed. Handsome, sex-crazed, funny, charming and a real prick - yep, that's Flashman. Errol never seemed to suffer from Flashman's cowardice or ability to avoid bad headlines, but he was a similar bully and bigot. (He even had a woman hit his backside with a hairbrush during love making, just like happened to Flashman in Royal Flash).

Like Flashman, he is more enjoyable a character the more he suffers in his adventures. For instance, I didn't particular admit to enjoying reading about Flynn's time in New Guinea - he goes black birding, cons natives, shoots people, is lazy at his job, always tries to take short cuts. He's not particularly engaging here. But his other adventures are more fun - fixing cockfights in Manila, joining the police in Hong Kong, running around on the stage in Northampton,suffering various encounters with women.

My favourite story is where he and John Barrymore talk about their fears of winding up on skid row - then decide to see what it's like so they put on make up and pretend to be bums! I also enjoyed his account of love making with Lupe Valez, who could rotate one breast and interrupted action to pray to saints. (Errol was supposed to be a self centered selfish person but he writes with warmth and affection on his friends such as Koets, Fred McEvoy, Barrymore and Raoul Walsh - it's a shame there weren't more sketches such as these throughout the book).

He certainly seems to hate women - but there is an underlying(admittedly very deeply buried underneath a lot of hate) affection for the vivacity of Lily Damitina, who seems to have been a handful and a half, but then so was Errol. (And she helped him be cast in Captain Blood through her friendship with Ann Warner so in a way she did deserve all that alimony).

It's a funny thing that in many ways Errol's erratic life before discovering acting was the perfect training for it - it developed a devil may care adventurer "air" which came across so vividly on screen. So all those years in New Guinea running low on money, discovering joy in native women, were in a way a trial run. Admittedly the time he went from professional actor to stay was very short - but he'd had eight years or so of adventures learning to be a star. It reminded me of Burt Lancaster's career - who was spotted merely walking along a corridor,then cast on that basis in a Broadway play, then given a star role in a film - but he had years of plugging away in a circus before that.

Errol copped a lot unfairly in his life - the rape allegations were unfounded, ditto the Objective Burma fiasco, and the treatment from his first wife. But you know I think it was karma - he could be cruel and mean, had sex whenever he could, didn't like women very much. To a degree, you get out of life what you put into it - and I like Errol Flynn movies, what a great star, but he put a lot of bad vibes out into the cosmos. He got everything he wanted - fame, money, fortune, women - even acting challenges, even book deals, even a paradise (Jamaica, boats)... he just never could hang on to it, or enjoy it.

And for all his complaints about "I wanted to act and they wouldn't let me", Warners did give him the chance at a variety of genres - for instance after San Antonio they tried him in a comedy (Never Say Goodbye), weepie (Escape Me Never) and film noir (Cry Wolf). So they did try and they would have more if Warners hadn't gone into a decline after WW2 - like many of the studios, admittedly, but they seemed to struggle with their star vehicles more than most.

In hindsight, it's a shame Errol never made a more permanent transition over at MGM - I think he would have fitted in there in the early 50s, he certainly would have been able to take the swashbuckler roles Robert Taylor played (I would have loved to see dissipated Errol as Lancelot in Knights of the Round Table)

Interestingly enough Flynn never seems to have been too involved with his co-stars - he squabbled with Bette Davis, had a crush on Olivia de Havilland, learned how to inject vodka into oranges from Ann Sheridan, married Patrice Wymore... but the rest you don't hear a lot, which is odd from a womaniser (i.e. nothing on Brenda Marshall, Alexis Smith, Miriam Hopkins, Ros Russell). He admits his leading ladies tended to be overawed by him which I think I can believe.

From a nationalistic point, Errol often doesn't appear very"Australian". Although he lived here for most of the first seventeen years of his life (there was a brief stint in England), he refers of himself more as a Tasmanian, Irishman or Englishman - never seems to have felt a nationalistic pang, not even during WW2. New Guinea seems to have really been the formative experience of his life, as I guess it would be - he keeps referring to it.

Particularly beautiful are the diary entries from Errol around 1952-53 towards the end of the book where he sets out some of his thoughts about life, the universe and everything. I can't see Errol's life as a tragedy, unless you count getting everything you want as a tragedy (which you may do).

What gives this book extra resonance is the fact Flynn died shortly after it was finished - it goes right up to just before he died. I'm sure a lot of the stories are made up or exaggerated, but reading it you do get a sense of what Flynn was like - tormented, insecure, neurotic, a spoilt baby capable of good, a permanent juvenile, a man for whom the movies he made were only a chapter in a very exotic life.

Movie review - Bulldog #4 - "Bulldog Drummond's Peril" (1938) **

Bulldog who is about to get married and has travelled all the way to Geneva for that purpose - then Algy lets slip his uncle has invented diamonds; a worried diamond magnate goes after the uncle and Bulldog goes to the rescue. Again this is mostly a "chase" story but has a bit more plot than usual, with a decent twist as to the villain. There is also an entertaining fight where the villain takes on Drummond with a whip while Drummond defends himself with a rapier. This was the last of John Barrymore's three Drummond's - his role isn't very big and he isn't in good form, looking a bit drunk at times.

Movie review - Bulldog #2 - "Bulldog Drummond Comes Back" (1937) **

John Howard's first entry as Bulldog Drummond, taking over from Ray Milland and Ronald Coleman quite comfortably. Howard was engaging but had less charisma than those two other actors, but this meant the series felt more like an ensemble - the feeling of a close-knit high-spirited family that made the series enjoyable. It seems the studio was a bit worried about Howard's drawing power, though - so we also have John Barrymore as Colonel Nielsen. (Barrymore is top billed but is more of a second lead.)

We meet Drummond at home composing a poem to his fiancee Phyllis - he only just got engaged during the previous film so butler Tenny is a bit suspicious of Phyllis. Then the brother and widow of someone Drummond sent to the gallows turns up and wants revenge - instead of just killing Drummond they kidnap Phyllis and set off Drummond on a trail of various clues... it's the same plot as Die Hard: with a Vengeance sixty years earlier! There is some fun when Barrymore decides to put on a disguise and trail Drummond - Barrymore wears two disguises and there are some delightful scenes of him putting on make up and reminiscing about his days on stage (there's even a gag about his profile. J Carrol Naish, who plays a villain here, later reappeared in Bulldog Drummond in Africa.