The Star Machine
Page 33
Starting with Four’s a Crowd in 1938 and leading up through Dive Bomber in 1941, Flynn made ten movies in three years. (Only three were in modern dress.*) Flynn’s career in these years follows a typical star machine progression. Because he was a studio contract player, he was expected to carry the can in women’s movies and comedies. He was never bad in anything; his touch was too light. But he was clearly uncomfortable in women’s films and seldom found a really good straight comedy role. (He did best with comedy that was tongue-in-cheek subtext, as in Robin Hood, which modernized the old story by infusing it with humor.) As handsome as he was, however, Flynn was just plain wrong for women’s pictures. He didn’t work well as a foil for a big female star. Forced to anchor Cry Wolf, Flynn seems grim, cheerless. He plays a no-fun-at-all older brother of a dead man Stanwyck claims to have married. A viewer can only wish for Preston Sturges to set the plot on its ear, revive the dead brother, and let Flynn play both roles in a riotous romp that spoofs greedy relatives murdering each other. Flynn could have been great in a movie like that, but he didn’t look happy in Cry Wolf. Warner Bros. had learned this lesson earlier than 1947. It was inevitable that the studio would eventually want to pair its top box office draws, Flynn and Bette Davis. They made two movies together, The Sisters in 1938 and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex in 1939. In both, Flynn has very little to do, and all reports indicate that the pairing was as unsuccessful offscreen as on.
The Sisters is a standard women’s film about three girls who grow up and marry, with differing problems that are all conveniently solved. One wants money and glamour (Anita Louise), one wants comfort, family, and security (Jane Bryan), and one wants that little something extra out of life (Bette Davis, of course). When Davis locks eyes with Errol Flynn at an election eve dance in Silver Bow, Montana, in 1904, that’s a lot of “something extra” as far as she’s concerned. Naturally, it takes an Errol Flynn to make this believable, because Davis’s character is also presented as intelligent, reliable, hardworking, and capable. Flynn is gorgeous but makes a bad husband (“I’m the kind of husband that makes the world feel sorry for his wife”). His persona makes the character work and the entire story credible, because he’s willing to let audiences believe there is a rotten side to his charm.
The mix of Davis and Flynn, however, does not work. Davis was driven and über-professional. Flynn was larky and full of fun. She seems as if she doesn’t really approve of him even in the scenes in which she’s supposed to be blindly loving him. Flynn isn’t diminished by his pairing with Davis—he’s too good-looking and easy in his role—but he doesn’t shine either. Davis wants a co-star who’s less a star than she is—a Glenn Ford, a Paul Henreid, a George Brent. She wants and needs the movie to be hers. Bette Davis was never once part of a power duo of dynamic star casting. She couldn’t accept an equal. Only Joan Crawford was up to the job.
There is always a tendency to underestimate Flynn, probably because of his messy offscreen life. In particular, when the names of great stars of westerns are listed, his is seldom among them. But Flynn was a successful star of westerns, as odd as that may now seem. After all, he has a British accent, slight though it is. And he’s elegant, graceful, and not an authentically American face like a John Wayne or a Randolph Scott. It makes sense to put him on the sea, yes, into combat, yes, and in tights in Sherwood Forest, yes. And in a lady’s boudoir, definitely yes. But in the West? Theoretically, it seems an odd choice, but it worked just fine. It’s a credit to Flynn’s strong screen personality that he could appear in American westerns and seem right at home on the range. In 1939, he was cast in Dodge City, followed by Virginia City in 1940, Santa Fe Trail (1940), They Died with Their Boots On (1941), San Antonio (1945), Silver River (1948), Montana (1950), and Rocky Mountain (1950). At first, some explanation was offered for his accent. Alan Hale does a long humorous riff on the subject in Dodge City, and in Virginia City, Randolph Scott inquires as to where he learned the skill of shooting at a moving target. Flynn answers: “In Afghanistan, the Kurds do it.” (Obviously he learned it in another Flynn movie, with a more appropriate setting!) Soon enough, fans just accepted his dapper presence in westerns, and no explanations were created.
… in The Charge of the Light Brigade, glamorous in his uniform
… proving he could do more than adventure films in comedies like Four’s a Crowd, with Patric Knowles and Olivia DeHavilland
… bravely going up in the flimsy crates of World War I, with Basil Rathbone, in the 1938 version of The Dawn Patrol
… bravely facing one of his biggest challenges: co-starring with Bette Davis in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex
… proving he could be as American as anybody, in Westerns such as Dodge City
… portraying a pensive George Custer in They Died with Their Boots On
Both Flynn and his co-star, Miriam Hopkins, are billed over the title in Virginia City, followed by “with Randolph Scott, Humphrey Bogart.” (Still searching for his star identity, Bogart was a victim of the star machine, appearing as a Mexican bandit with a dubious accent and a laughable pencil-thin mustache. As one watches him in this small role of a villain, it is impossible to picture him becoming the darling of the Harvard Square Theatre in the 1960s.) The casting of Virginia seems crazy in other ways, too. Not only is Flynn inexplicably a Union soldier in Virginia City (making him a Southern rebel would have been more credible), but Miriam Hopkins is a western saloon singer who is actually a Southern spy and patriot. The role requires her, without a shred of musical talent, to “entertain” at the Virginia City nightspot. There she is, can-canning around the stage and dancing among the men in the audience, all of whom look vaguely frightened.
Well aware of the potential problems they might have with the high-living Flynn, the Warners publicity department shaped his roles and his fan magazine articles carefully. As early as Footsteps in the Dark, the movie had dialogue about Flynn’s character that was also designed to be about himself. “Oh, that fatal charm of his,” says Lucile Watson, playing his mother-in-law, and “Of course, it affects women like catnip to cats,” replies Brenda Marshall, playing his wife. This is dialogue as sales pitch and as reinforcement of what the women in the audience were already thinking. The machine had a colorful offscreen personality in Flynn, so they shaped dialogue in his movies to tell audiences how to see him, and fan magazines followed suit. The July 1942 issue of Modern Screen carried an article that tells readers “Flynn is not to be confused with the genus playboy who lives for the moment, doesn’t know what time it is, and has nothing to show for his pains but the circles under his eyes and a basketful of unsavory press clippings. The Flynn pursuit of pleasure is down-to-earth, harmless, and adult. Above all, it observes a healthy respect for the law of cause and effect—a respect, nevertheless, which has not prevented him from going a cropper on occasions.” Although Warners was adept at this type of chicanery, behind the scenes they were far more hardheaded.
Like all studios, Warners was ever alert to disasters that could threaten their coffers and had already done what studios always did when a big-time star was known to act up around town. (Among other didoes, Flynn was said to have kicked Hedda Hopper in her rear end at Mocambo’s.) They found an Errol Flynn look-alike replacement and put him under contract, “just in case.” His name was Patric Knowles. It has often been pointed out by critics, among them the knowledgeable Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies, that Knowles and Flynn are look-alikes. Knowles had appeared with Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood, playing Will Scarlett, and as his romantic rival in Four’s a Crowd. Because of the resemblance, Knowles’s dark hair had been dyed blond for Robin Hood, and true to his character, he was always decked out in scarlet. Side by side in still photographs, Knowles and Flynn could be taken for brothers and, if Knowles had Flynn’s mustache, perhaps even twins. In fact, it’s the mustache that separates them in Four’s a Crowd: One has it (Flynn) and the other doesn’t (Knowles). Yet only keen-eyed moviegoers ever really
notice their remarkable similarity, because the star presence of Flynn totally eclipses that of Knowles. Knowles is handsome and can act, but he’s no Errol Flynn. In Four’s a Crowd, Flynn flamboyantly displays his character. Knowles is attractive and pleasant but plays his role as written. Flynn adds a bold conceit. “I’m incredible,” he tells co-star Rosalind Russell, but he laughs about it, managing to defang any male jealousy in the audience while endearing himself to the female viewers. Flynn could always joke about his sex appeal, and by doing it himself before anyone else could, he left Knowles no place to go. Knowles has to become the lesser Errol Flynn, the one forced to push hard to make his character work. He seems dated. Flynn is able to lie back, all cool and modern and mocking, even though he’s forced to bite a dog’s tail to get a laugh!
In the early years, despite their precautions, Warners wasn’t too worried about Flynn. His bad-boy behavior seemed charming and effervescent and didn’t appear to be an insurmountable problem. Besides, it fit the image they were selling. (Studios always knew how to put a spin on anything.) However, unlike the very professional Lana Turner, Flynn could be a problem on the set. Warners was careful to cast him mostly in movies directed by men who could handle him. Fifteen of Flynn’s most successful movies were either directed by the dictatorial monster Michael Curtiz, or Raoul Walsh, himself a devil-may-care guy with an adventurous spirit. Walsh was perhaps Flynn’s most kindred spirit and one of his closest offscreen pals. He directed They Died with Their Boots On (1941); Desperate Journey (1942); Northern Pursuit (1943); Uncertain Glory (1944); Objective, Burma! (1945); San Antonio (1945); Silver River, Montana (1950) and what many people feel is one of Flynn’s most delightful films, Gentleman Jim (1942).
Walsh often spoke of Flynn with affection, telling me that on the one hand, what a charmer the actor was, and on the other, what a bad, bad boy! He seemed to understand Flynn thoroughly, and Flynn seems most comfortable, most himself, in movies directed by Walsh.* Gentleman Jim is a comedy, a biography, a costume picture, a romance, a family drama, and it has elements of the West, of an adventure movie, and even, with its fight scene, of combat. It’s everything Errol Flynn could give an audience neatly wrapped up in one package, directed with a breakneck pace. Flynn is young, still looking beautiful, and his performance is both broad and subtle. Above all, he brings his character directly to the audience, illustrating perfectly why fans loved his cheeky manner and his handsome sex appeal. It was only 1942, but nothing better than Gentleman Jim lay ahead of Errol Flynn. Good films were yet to come—but nothing really any better. The best was behind him less than eight years after he started.
Things began to turn sour for Flynn during the early 1940s. Perhaps he might have curbed his drinking, grown out of his embarrassment about his “movie star” fame, or even got tired of beautiful women. But two things happened to change his life and his image forever. One was of his own making, and the other was out of his control.
First, Errol Flynn did what he often did. On September 27, 1942, he went to a party, met a young girl named Betty Hansen, took her upstairs, and allegedly had sex with her. The next day, she claimed she had been seduced and was taken to protective custody in juvenile hall. She was seventeen years old. Officials realized that fourteen months earlier, another young girl had filed a similar complaint, claiming that Flynn had seduced her on his yacht, the Sirocco. Her name was Peggy Satterlee, and the charges she made had been dropped. The two accusations were now put together, and on October 11, Flynn was arrested and charged with having sex with a minor. It was a movie star’s worst nightmare.
Flynn was fortunate in being able to retain Jerry Geisler, a famously ruthless trial lawyer who had a unique talent for exposing shaky witnesses. He also was known to have an army of “researchers” who could dig up dirt on anyone for any purpose. At the grand jury hearing, the two young girls gave confused accounts of what had happened, and the grand jury wasn’t impressed. But the judge, believing the jury had been influenced by the good looks and stardom of Errol Flynn, overruled them. On October 17, 1942, while he was in the middle of shooting Edge of Darkness, Flynn was told that in six days he would be arraigned on two counts of raping Peggy Satterlee on the nights of August 2 and 3, 1941.
The resulting trial was not just a three-ring circus—it was a ten-ring circus. A top-level A-list movie star on trial for rape? And one who looked and acted like a bad boy? Despite the seriousness of the subject, the courtroom often erupted in laughter. (When asked what happened after the event under discussion, Satterlee said Flynn “brought me a glass of milk.”) The studio wasn’t happy, but what could it do? If Flynn lost, his career—and their investment—would be ruined. There was a lot at stake: for Flynn, for Warner Bros., and for Hollywood.
Geisler dug in. Betty Hansen turned out not to be very innocent, already under investigation for having sex with others. Satterlee turned out to be living with an actor, and Geisler also proved she’d had an abortion (illegal in those days). He was able to discredit her testimony by proving that her memory of the bunk she claimed to have been raped on was incorrect. Finally, he proved she had lied about her age. Every ugly detail was pulled out and printed in the papers. The Brothers Warner discreetly kept away from the trial, in case of disaster, but some of Flynn’s friends, notably Raoul Walsh, stood by. Flynn also had the sympathy of his fans and most of the press, a group he had always been easy and friendly with. Even Hedda and Louella closed ranks and protected him; he had long since charmed them both. After three months of hell and headlines, Flynn received his verdict: “not guilty.” Flynn shook hands with the jurors, each one, very carefully, and delivered a perfectly gentlemanly speech: “My confidence in American justice is completely justified. I am happy, and I am sincerely grateful to all those whose confidence in me encouraged me to go through this ordeal.”
It was a grim experience, and it had revealed Flynn’s life to be fairly sordid. Now he was a bit of a bad joke. His life, his career, and his reputation would never be the same. In his autobiography, Flynn wrote of his shock not only at being arrested, but also at the public’s reaction. “While I believed I would be an object of scorn and derision, it didn’t turn out to be that way at all. On the contrary, the whole country seemed to get amusement out of it … My box office appeal went up … but now it had a rampant character … I felt used. Used by the studio. Used to make money. Used by the press for fun. Used by society as a piece of chalk to provide the world with a dab of color.” Everyone else moved on, but for Errol Flynn it was a downward turning point. And there would be another one.
Added to the trial horror was a factor over which Flynn had no control: World War II. Flynn was not an American, but he had applied for citizenship eight months after Pearl Harbor. He felt grateful to the country that had given him fame and wealth, and at the age of thirty-three, on August 15, 1942, had become eligible for the draft when he signed his citizenship papers. But there was a problem. The tall, beautiful hunk of man known to fans as Errol Flynn had recurrent malaria, a heart murmur, various venereal diseases, and—as his examining doctor wrote in his draft file—“a tuberculosis, pulmonary, chronic reinfection (adult) type in the right apex.” Shockingly, the star promoted for his physical beauty and athleticism was disqualified for service because of bad health. The studio clamped down at once, fearing that this news, coupled with his hideous rape trial, would ruin his career just when they needed him most. Because the studio refused to let the truth be publicized about why Flynn wasn’t in the war, he became a favorite target of journalists who accused him of draft dodging.
This situation was exacerbated by the roles he played during the war. For the studio, the main thing was the bottom line: Flynn was a perfect choice to play the hero in war movies, and he was going to be available for the duration. Thus, Errol Flynn entered World War II through the movie camera, but only through the movie camera. His first World War II–related film was Dive Bomber in 1941, actually made before America was participating. It’s not really co
mbat, but it put Flynn in uniform. After Pearl Harbor, Flynn was rushed into Desperate Journey, Northern Pursuit, Uncertain Glory, and Objective, Burma!
Objective, Burma!, Flynn’s famous World War II combat film, became a source of personal criticism for him.
The first, Desperate Journey,* presented Flynn and his fellow RAF pilots (among them Ronald Reagan) as a merry band of marauders who just happen to be shot down over Germany but who, with a tra la la, make their way back to England. (The movie ends with Flynn cheerfully piloting an enemy plane over the white cliffs of Dover and saying, “Now for Asia, and a crack at those Japs!”)
He might have gotten away with this kind of movie nonsense, since his next two war films didn’t actually cast him as a heroic soldier. In Northern Pursuit he’s a Mountie chasing a Nazi spy, and in Uncertain Glory, a criminal who’s accidentally set free when the Nazis bomb the train he’s being transported on. But then came Objective, Burma! in 1945: a beautiful war film, well directed by Raoul Walsh, and a grim presentation of actual combat. Flynn became a victim of backlash from those, especially in England, who resented him portraying a war hero when he was, in their eyes, a Hollywood goldbricker. Objective, Burma! was not well received in England, where they felt the role Great Britain had played was not given sufficient credit. (One famous headline sneered, “Errol Flynn Wins War in Burma.”) Articles about Flynn not being in service appeared in print, and critics mocked him. Letters to newspapers in America came from England and Australia, bitterly resenting him. This attitude was probably partly fueled by the scandals Flynn was kicking up offscreen, and by the sense that he was a no-good womanizer. (He was a womanizer, but no one ever suggested he wasn’t good at it.) Flynn’s offscreen “I don’t care” performance began to falter during these years, despite a reasonably stable marriage to the beautiful Nora Eddington (whom he met during his trial for rape). He was hurt and embarrassed by all this, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Publicly, he decided to go along with the joke. “I yielded with a smile to the now-complete legend of myself as a modern Don Juan … The public has always expected me to be a playboy, and a decent chap never lets the public down.”