Errol Flynn

Errol Flynn is one my favorite movie actors. I like his movies and his performances in them. I think that people will be watching and enjoying Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk and a few more long after many of the more actor-ly and pretentious films of his contemporaries (and ours) are properly forgotten. It is often said that he was not a very good actor. That of course raises an interesting question. If what he did was so easy and unremarkable, why had no one else been able to match or duplicate it in all the years that have followed?

A couple of nights ago I saw Lauren Bacall on a short on TCM saying that Flynn was always dissatisfied because he wanted to play more “serious” dramatic roles. If that is true, it is sad. For he was the best there ever was at doing what he did, playing the swashbuckler, just as John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart, respectively, were at playing the Westerner and the score-knowing, tough guy loner walking down the world’s mean streets. That should have been enough for anybody.