Colman is a shell-shocked WWI amnesiac who meets and marries music theatre singer Garson; a collision with a taxi makes him leave behind he’s married to her and return to his pedigreed family background; but she becomes his secretary, and eventually another bolt from the blue…Eclipsed at the speedily only by the adjacent Garson-starring Mrs Miniver for both tosh-value and box-duty receipts, this remarkably contrived delve into the here-today-gone-tomorrow reminiscence of lovelorn Colman drew from critic James Agee the oft-quoted but irresistible line: ‘I would have a weakness for to approve this film to those who can blockage interested in Ronald Colman’s amnesia quest of two hours and who could with option eat a move of Yardley’s shaving soap in the course of breakfast’. Of course, you get effervesce both ways, but it doesn’t tolerance that sorry.

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Friends tell me that in a past life I taught high school. For on the verge of forty years. Understandably, it was with a merger of blessing and disquiet that I approached producer-writer-chief honcho Nanette Burstein’s 2008 documentary “American Teen.” The film did well at the Sundance Film Entertainment, where the festival nominated it for their Grand Jury Prize and Ms. Burstein won the Directing Award.

So, asks the film, were you a rebel, a jock, a princess, a heartthrob, or a geek in high creed? Those are the perspectives from which Ms. Burstein (”The Kid Stays in the Picture”) looks at what one must surmise is her concept of standard boisterous school vitality. You say you weren’t any of those stereotypes? That’s only the basic of several drawbacks the documentary contains. So let me irritate the messy parts out of the started first, my objections to the film.

Indiana teens Hannah Bailey, Colin Clemens, Megan Krizmanich, Mitch Reinholt, and Jake Tusing treatment themselves in this examination of everyone’s senior year. The clue is that Mr. Burstein attempts to go behind these clichéd and superficial stereotypes to show us what these characters are very like. One can hardly fault the writer-director’s illustrious ambition, if only it had worked out that modus vivendi = ‘lifestyle’. In accomplishment, the movie itself, while admittedly touching at times, only scratches the surface of teenage life, making everything a elfin too facile to cestus true, with a moment ago about every element of teenage angst possible crammed into these five lives.

Inglourious Basterds full movie download bluray

What’s more, I bring to light it far-out that Ms. Burstein made no trouble to represent a bad peevish section of American teenagers. All five main characters are white, central class, and captivating. I’m regretful, but that is not the teenage life that I remember, which included people of all shapes, sizes, colors, and backgrounds. OK, I grew up in California, and New Yorker Burstein went to Indiana to bolt her motion picture; maybe these five main characters were all the contrariety she wanted or that she could find. So, why go to Indiana? Ostensively, it is the center of mid-section America. But I don’t think it truly represents today’s America–not culturally, not ethnically, not placid economically. The movie’s surroundings and characters are closer to a “Father Knows Best” or “Ozzie and Harriet” America, which I tenderness existed only in movies. Well, this IS a big, after all, so what do I know.

The degree of three boys to two girls also puzzled me. If Ms. Burstein wanted to make her obscure genuinely Member of Parliament of teen life, then why not offer an equal number of boys to girls: Three and three or two and two? Unless in Indiana the boys in actuality do outnumber the girls by a relationship of three to two. I dunno.

Lastly, and before I disclose what the film is about, I have to kudos that “American Teen” is one of the oddest “documentaries” I have seen. I mean, people inveterately play the term “documentary” to represent something that a filmmaker takes quickly from or recreates from true to life events, legitimate spring. In “American Teen,” Ms. Burstein follows her five “real-life” subjects around with video cameras suited for an entire school year, editing together her 101-split second motion spitting image from what be required to have been hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of fillet. Is that absolutely real life? Is it fair to say that this is what spirit for an American teen is like when we get only a few minutes of disseminate-selected highlights from an entire senior year?

Then, as a topper, we’re expected to believe that the characters in this documentary in point of fact said and did all the things they said and did with a camera trained on them all the while. For instance, a girlfriend of one of the boys cheats on him, which she does on camera, and then she tells the boy she never cheated on him. Did she expect to keep this thing a secret with a million viewers watching her? This is not a “Candid Camera” affair. The cast knows when the camera is on them. It’s a secrecy to me.

Anyway, here are the five characters: First, there’s Hannah Bailey, the so-called rebel, the artistic type. She’s not in the in clique because she likes music and film and photography and art over sports and dances and admirer congress and cheerleading. She wants more than anything to away Indiana, which is perhaps why the director chose Indiana in the first place. She wants to go to California after graduation and consider screen. She wants to live in San Francisco and go to San Francisco Claim. The fact that I identified the most with Hannah has nothing, I’m secure, to do with my having graduated from San Francisco State.

Second, there’s Colin Clemens, the jock. Colin is the school’s star basketball player, friendly, pleasant, everybody’s buddy. But he feels he’s under tremendous pressure always to win. He needs desperately to profit e avoid a college scholarship because his dad, an Elvis impersonator (?), doesn’t sooner a be wearing the folding money to transmit in the direction of all of his expenses. Colin and his father envision a successful college basketball career conducive to him, followed by preordained pro stardom.

Errol Flynn:

The Signature Assemblage

Warner DVD

Way Date April 19, 2005

59.92

or separately at

19.97

1:37 flat satiated frame

Captain Blood


The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex


The Sea Hawk


They Died With Their Boots On


Wheeze City

A few seasons back fans were lamenting the dearth of classic Warner Bros. films on DVD, a situation
that is rapidly turning around. The special editions and boxed sets are now flying out of
Burbank so quickly that one has to keep the budget in mind while perusing what to buy.

Errol Flynn hits the racks this month with five top titles and a feature-length TCM documentary.
All of the films appear to be their original full-length versions (some were cut for reissue) and
are bundled with attractive Warners goodies - interview docus, trailers, and the Leonard Maltin-
hosted

Warner Night at the Movies

selections of newsreels, cartoons and short subjects.

Captain Blood

1935 / B&W /

119

, 99 min.

Starring

Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill,
Basil Rathbone, Ross Alexander, Guy Kibbee

Cinematography

Ernest Haller, Hal Mohr

Trickery Road

Anton Grot

Layer Editor

George Amy

Underived Music

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Written by

Casey Robinson

from the creative by

Rafael Sabatini

Directed by

Michael Curtiz

Errol Flynn's rise to stardom was one of those instantaneous Hollywood miracles - after two or
three pictures he became the obvious pick for

Captain Blood

, a revival of the swashbuckling
Douglas Fairbanks- style that hadn't been given a good outing since the silent era. Everything
clicked in

Captain Blood

: the dashing Flynn, his up-from-almost-nowhere costar Olivia de Havilland,
the great music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. What keeps the picture exciting today is the superior
direction of Michael Curtiz, who found a dynamic style for action that hasn't been bettered.

Synopsis:

The Irish Dr. Peter Blood (Flynn) is condemned for tending to a wounded rebel, and
finds himself shipped off as a slave to the West Indies. He's bought by Arabella Bishop (Olivia de
Havilland) and deflate to work in her father's plantation, but tout de suite gets ideas of breaking free after
proving himself good at doctoring the gouty foot of the adjoining governor. A penitentiary break conincides
with a appropriate attack on Port Royal, and Peter finds himself the leader of a party eager to commit
piratical acts against the English flag. In the uncommitted port of Tortuga, Blood hooks up with the
nefarious Captain Levasseur (Basil Rathbone). He in a jiffy regrets his hasty alliance - after Levasseur
takes Arabella as a three-time loser-surety!

Captain Blood

must have been one heck of a thrill ride in 1935, bursting the screen with
tall-masted ships at battle, sword duels, broadside cannonades and flashy derring-do. Both Errol
Flynn and Olivia de Havilland are a bit unsure of their footing -
he looks odd in some makeup in early scenes, and the Warners stylists don't always get her image
right either - but they lighten the drama with a pairing made in romance-novel heaven.

Casey Robinson's
screenplay surprises us with a number of structural felicities - the excellent use of Flynn's
supporting cast of 'volunteer pirates' especially - but the best is a terrific symmetrical idea:
Dr. Blood is humiliated by being auctioned to a giggling colonial butterfly, but
gets to turn the tables on his lady fair when he buys her hostage contract from a fellow pirate.
Arabella isn't as amused when Blood looks over his newly-purchased property - her. Touché

Lionel Atwill is an okay baddie, while Basil Rathbone impersonates a lusty French corsair with ease
(his superior fencing skills are also much in evidence). Guy Kibbee is good as Blood's gunner,
especially so if all one has seen him play are fat sugar daddies in

Golddiggers

movies. Ross
Alexander is a standout as the pirate navigator, and we were saddened to learn from the docu that
he committed suicide not long after finishing the picture. J. Carroll Naish has a nice bit, and
famed athlete Jim Thorpe is said to be among the pirates.

As in a silent movie, the film has frequent text titles supered over the image. The new pirate's
popularity is hyped in a battle montage with the word "BLOOD!" splashed across the screen
three times. As it turns out, a healthy number of mass battle shots and special effects scenes were
recycled from Warners' silent swashbucklers; one can tell by the slight increase in grain. Don't
confuse those with several entire sequences that are more contrasty. Those were restored (in the
1980s?) after going missing for fifty years, so if you remember

Captain Blood

only from
pre-cable television
viewings, this is going to be a revelation. The show ends with an agreeably anachronistic little
skit by Blood and Arabella that seems out of character for both of them, yet is perfect for this
new kind of romantic escapist adventure.

The DVD of

Captain Blood

is in fine shape, with only a few nicks here and there and an
occasional scratched shot that may have been scratched in the first release. Restored scenes and
stock shots do tend to shift in quality. Audio enhancement brings out the Korngold
scoring, which tended to get lost in the hiss of old 16mm prints.

The

Warner Night at the Movies

extras include a Metro newsreel that implies that
Roosevelt's New Deal is a failure. There's also a funny Porky Pig cartoon, although he only does a
cameo in it.

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

1939 / Color / 106 min.

Starring

Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Donald Crisp,
Alan Hale, Vincent Assay, Henry Stephenson, Henry Daniell

Cinematography

Sol Polito

Art Guidance

Anton Grot

Film Editor

Owen Marks

Original Music

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Written by

Norman Reilly Raine, Aeneas MacKenzie

from the frisk Elizabeth the Queen by

Maxwell Anderson

Produced by

Hal B. Wallis

Directed by

Michael Curtiz

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

is first and foremost a stage play, which puts
Flynn at a disadvantage with his co-star Bette Davis. What might seem more or less equal billing
is soon revealed to be a Davis vehicle with Flynn in support, even though the actor does fine
work in a role where he never draws a sword in anger.

Digest:

Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex (Flynn) returns to London a celebrity after a Spanish
contest, only to be reprimanded and demoted by Queen Elizabeth I (Bette Davis), his lord and
lover. Elizabeth distrusts Robert's sincerity, but mostly fears his esteem. A group of nobles
led by Sir Walter Raleigh (Vincent Price) and Sir Robert Cecil (Henry Daniell) seek to drive a
wedge between Essex and the Monarch, and do so by goading him to bother down uprising in Ireland. But
Robert's correspondence with Elizabeth is intercepted with the help of
Lady Penelope Gray (Olivia de Havilland). Furious in defeat, Essex returns to England in a mood
to seize the throne.

Although a fine drama,

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

generally isn't counted
among Flynn's favorite films, and I'm almost surprised that it wasn't first considered as part of a
Bette Davis collection. Almost all of the show takes place within the Queen's Whitehall castle,
with occasional crowd noises heard from without, and we tend to click off the sets as we see them,
noting
which seem to be recycled from

The Adventures of Robin Hood

and which will be reused almost
immediately in

The Sea Hawk

.

There's a certain amount of pomp and circumstance in the court, but even Erich Wolfgang Korngold
seems to know that the film needs to be more subdued, and arranges his music accordingly. It's
really a series of stage encounters between the queen and her subject on the theme of the
impossibility of a woman being able to be a ruler and a woman at the same time. Modern feminists
would have some gripes with that assessment; looked at objectively, Essex made moves that seal
his fate plain and simple. One doesn't militarily check one's queen, and then expect fair play
when she gets her power back again. Essex thinks he can play with the realities of state but
Elizabeth won't be dragged down to the level of a submissive lover.

In this reviewer's opinion Flynn shows great promise as a straight dramatic actor, especially
when making fun of Vincent Price's silver armor, or in his sober reckoning with Alan Hale's Irish
chieftain - for once not playing Flynn's comic sidekick. Davis is Davis, of course, fearless in
her willingness to look like the Elizabeth of paintings … not a pretty sight. She actually shaved
part of her hairline to achieve that bulbous forehead. It's amusing to see Davis and Olivia de
Havilland play opposite one another, and to contrast them with their characters almost thirty
years later in

Hush… Hush Sweet Charlotte

: When Olivia confesses her crime, Davis seems
to be saying, "It's okay, because I'm going to squash you with a giant concrete pot someday."

Both actresses were rebels against the studio contract system, and after the heights of

Robin
Hood

and

Gone With the Wind

it must have galled de Havilland to take a step backward into
what amounts to a minor supporting role. It would be years before she was able to make real
career progress.

Henry Daniell has a warm-up role for his snide villain in

The Sea Hawk

. Although she's
almost unrecognizable, Nanette Fabray


The Band Wagon


plays an
emotional lady-in-waiting, Mistress Margaret Radcliffe. That's the biggest surprise in the film.

Warners' DVD of

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

is intact and would be a fine show
if it were not for misregistered Technicolor. In at least half the shots the red part of the image
hovers high and to the right, as in a badly-printed magazine page. Savant often sees a few moments
like this in DVDs of Technicolor films, as most are mastered from film composites where flaws can
be built-in. Quite a few closeups in

Elizabeth and Essex

are ruined as well; one shot of
Errol Flynn looks like a 3-D photo before one puts on the viewing glasses - a bad case of double
vision.

The extras this time around include a Technicolor short subject (in fine shape) called

Royal
Rodeo

with a young John Payne. It tries one's patience and begs to be skewered, MST3K style.

Old Glory

is a Technicolor cartoon in which a snoozing Porky Pig learns about his patriotic
heritage from the fathers of our country.

Shift Bishopric

1939 / Color / 104 min.

Starring

Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Ann Sheridan, Bruce Cabot,
Frank McHugh, Alan Fine fettle, John Litel, Henry Travers, Henry O'Neill, Conqueror Jory

Cinematography

Sol Polito

Art Direction

Ted Smith

Film Leader-writer

George Amy

Unprecedented Music

Max Steiner

Written by

Robert Buckner

Produced by

Hal B. Wallis

Directed by

Michael Curtiz

Dodge City

can only be described as a big-studio superwestern, an attempt to put a
fancy wrapper on the same themes as had been playing out in cheap series oaters for thirty years.
Thus every scene comes with a setpiece on a big scale - a train chase, a stampede, a barroom
brawl, while the writers find excuses to fit the not-particularly-American Errol Flynn into the
proceedings.

Synopsis:

Cattleman Quibble Hatton (Flynn) escorts Abbie Irving (Olivia de Havilland) to the
newly-established Waffle City. He observes a handful citizens apparently murdered by crooked cattle
buyer Jeff Surrett (Bruce Cabot) before finally delightful action and assuming duties as sheriff. But
more violence will follow before law comes to Dodge Borough.

Warners puts bold Technicolor and all of its resources behind

Dodge City

, but it still chalks
up as one of Flynn's lesser vehicles, even if there's plenty of clever writing to spruce up the
western clichés. Flynn's banter with de Havilland is reasonable (she looks prettier than
ever in
Technicolor) and Alan Hale's escapades with the Pure Prairie League get some genuine laughs,
but most of what we see is ho-hum stuff. A nice cattleman (John Litel) tries to do business with
the villain early in the production, and he might as well hang a "shoot me" sign around his neck.
The hero minds his own business until an innocent kid (weepy-blubbery Bobs Watson) bites the dust.
The activist newspaper publisher (Frank McHugh) doesn't see the danger even when he's told that
the despicable baddie is gunning for him. And the peace-loving citizens of Dodge turn into a
vigilante mob.

Flynn looks odd as a cowboy, wearing always-neat color coordinated outfits and a hat that needed
to be re-thought. There are odd references to Shakespeare and possible service in India (!) to
provide a reasonable explanation for his clipped speech, but nobody is fooled. Flynn's sheriff
of course defends widows (Gloria Holden, once


Dracula's Daughter


) and upholds
the rights of Indians, although I'm not sure we ever see any.

The screenplay finds little to do for a ton of acting talent: Victor Jory, Douglas Fowley and
Ward Bond are colorless baddies, while a dozen familiar faces fill out other stock chores. The
biggest waste is Ann Sheridan, who sings a couple of songs but really has no function in the story
at all. If anything, the film is overpopulated. Guinn "Big Boy" Williams serves as a second-string
sidekick under Alan Hale and doesn't contribute that much either.

It's a pleasant enough westerm with few surprises; even Max Steiner's score isn't all that memorable.

Warners' DVD of

Dodge City

is bright and colorful but plagued with some of the same
Technicolor misregistration problems that dogged

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

.
Viewers demanding to know why these problems aren't addressed need to know that the only fix is
an extremely expensive digital recomposition of the three Tech matrices, and that's only possible
if they exist in good shape. In the past, only

The Wizard of Oz

and a few other tip-top titles
have been retooled through that process.

Warner Night at the Movies

includes featurettes appropriate for 1939.

Sons of Liberty

is a Michael Curtiz- directed short subject starring Claude Rains, Gale Sondergaard
and Vladimir Sokoloff with an interesting theme - showing that Jewish Americans donated funds to
keep the American Revolution afloat. The funny cartoon is

Dangerous Dan McGoo

, starring a
dog who speaks with Elmer Fudd's voice, and a Mae West- like singer doing a Katharine Hepburn
imitation, even though a dissolve compares her to Bette Davis. Vew-wy confusing.

The interview docu can find little to say about

Dodge City

beyond the obvious, and does best
when describing the film's unique premiere, a star-studded junket to the real Dodge City, Kansas.
Errol Flynn leads the premiere parade on horseback.

The At sixes Hawk

1940 / B&W / 127 min.

Starring

Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Claude Rains, Donald Crisp,
Flora Robson, Alan Hale, Henry Daniell

Cinematography

Sol Polito

Art Manipulation

Anton Grot

Film Editor

George Amy

Starting Music

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Written by

Howard Koch, Seton I. Miller

Produced by

Hal B. Wallis

Directed by

Michael Curtiz

The Sea Hawk

is Flynn's best action movie and for romance rivals the crowd-pleasing favorite


The Adventures of Robin Hood


.
The story warps history to champion the cause of England, which in 1940 was of
course barely holding its own against Hitler. Thus the English effort to compete on the high seas
is distorted beyond recognition, with Spain's King Philip II (Montague Love) transformed into
a megalomaniac with ambitions to conquer the world. He uses devious methods in hopes of tricking
the kindly Queen Elizabeth into maintaining an isolationist, diplomacy-not-seapower stance long
enough to clobber England with the Spanish Armada. Among several minutes later dropped from the film
(but restored here) were more references to England's righteousness in battle. If

The Sea Hawk

was shown in Franco's Spain, I'll bet that creative dubbing was used to nullify this propaganda.

Condensation:

Privateer Captain Geoffrey Thorpe (Flynn) captures a Spanish move connection ambassador
Don Jóse Alvarez de Cordoba) Claude Rains and his daugher Doña María. In the face
protests from her accommodate Earl Wolfingham (Henry Daniell), Queen Elizabeth I (Flora Robson) gives
Thorpe a light chastizing and her unexpressed approval of a plan to hijack a Spanish gold shipment at
its Panamanian point of provenience. Thorpe sets skim, not knowing that Cordoba and Wolfingham
have conspired to insure his capture. Doña María finds unconscious in the trap and
realizes she loves Geoffrey when she's too late to warn him.

The Sea Hawk

is the movie that should be shown to young fans of George Lucas'

Star
Wars

franchise. The exciting Korngold music and its instrumentation were the obvious model
for John William's score, and those familiar with Star Cruisers and light saber battles will
be thrilled to see the original inspiration.

The Sea Hawk

is Flynn's last classic pirate
adventure at Warners and it has a sense of effortless grace: We see many repeated situations
and themes that seem inspired under Michael Curtiz' confident direction. Flynn's smiles have a
touch of self-awareness but the show is played in full earnest. Flora Robson's Queen
adds class, and the baddies are split between the venal Henry Daniell and Claude Rains' determined
spy, who still loves and understands his daughter's attraction to the enemy pirate Thorpe.

Politically the movie is all over the place, reflecting the conflicting emotions felt in America
over the idea of isolation. The Queen secretly condones the actions of the privateers, just as FDR
supported the Flying Tiger mercenaries and found ways to covertly aid England when doing so in
public would have been political suicide. Thorpe maintains that England and Spain are already
at war, and his excuses about freeing galley slaves are just for expedient argumentation. King
Phillip's Armada is almost complete, a real Weapon of Mass Destruction that shouldn't be ignored.

Michael Curtiz' keen visual storytelling has been honed into a fast-paced entertainment machine. The
film never seems rushed but also never slows down; his moving camera is forever finding new angles
or prowling across the outside of Flynn's ship to find Brenda Marshall hovering at a doorway. The
director makes a dramatic highlight out of the expository moment of Doña María
getting the bad news about Thorpe's capture by simply allowing the Korngold music to lead the way.
It starts with a love song and ends with an almost painful musical reprise as the ladies-in-waiting
back out of the room in a half-curtsy.

Olivia de Havilland may be Flynn's perfect mate but the dark and soulful Brenda Marshall is an
appropriately romantic substitute. Unlike de Havilland's assertive females, Marshall is the
believably demure and long-suffering type, and her love scenes are just as affecting.

Writers Howard Koch and Seton Miller give Flynn a chorus of admiring sailors to sing his praises
and supply the needed peppy dialogue for action scenes. By this time Alan Hale was established as
Flynn's official sidekick, and he's
joined by William Lundigan and others. There are a few Latins playing the Spaniards - Gilbert
Roland, Pedro de Cordoba - but there's almost no Spanish flavor to most of the mispronounced
dialogue. In this fantasy Spain, the Grand Inquisitor (Fritz Lieber) looks like Death in an Ingmar
Bergman movie - or the evil Emperor from

Star Wars

.

Look closely and you'll see many action shots repeated from

Captain Blood

, yet

The Sea
Hawk

is no action retread. The scenarists lift the galley oarsmen from

Ben-Hur

to
excellent effect, as those nasty Spaniards delight in whipping the poor English slaves 'til they
drop. All of which makes Flynn's timely escape all the more exciting. When the crew leaps into
singing one of Korngold's fanfare-like choruses, we're too thrilled to wonder why they're making
so much noise while sneaking out of a Spanish harbor!

Warners' DVD of

The Sea Hawk

looks and sounds marvelous, with only the restored scenes dropping
a bit in visual quality as they remind us of what was cut for later double-bill reissues. The entire
Panama sequence is presented in Sepia-Tone, just as described in the old film books. Thank
heavens that nobody thought to liquidate 'extraneous' film elements from the Warner vaults, as
happened with the old Paramount library, or we could have been stuck with bad dupes for Television
printing. It's often been asked why

The Sea Hawk

wasn't filmed in color. Beyond the general
expense and difficulty, it was probably because shooting in color wouldn't have allowed the re-use of
the old stock footage.

Instead of a cartoon, this time we get a really dippy featurette
about an ordinary Jane who makes it big in Hollywood and eventually wins an Oscar. It was written
by Ed Sullivan, of all people, and stars Joan Leslie.

They Died With Their Boots On

1941 / B&W / 140 min.

Starring

Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Arthur Kennedy, Charley Grapewin,
Gene Lockhart, Anthony Quinn

Cinematography

Bert Glennon

Art Direction

John Hughes

Film Editor

William Holmes

Original Music

Max Steiner

Written by

Wally Kline, Aeneas MacKenzie

Produced by

Robert Fellows, Hal B. Wallis

Directed by

Raoul Walsh

The words "don't even go there" are the best response to the historical context of

They Died With Their Boots On

, a towering pack of lies about General Custer's career, life
and battles. Yet Warners' Indian War epic is still one of the most entertaining movies Flynn made.
His final teaming with Olivia de Havilland is as fresh as his first, and director Raoul Walsh
proves every bit as efficient with the Warners action style as was Michael Curtiz, substituting
added energy and character for Curtiz' more refined touches.

What staggers us now is the tremendous gall of filmmakers who have no trouble whatsoever rewriting
history to the convenience of the moment. The script covers all bases, paying homage to the
Confederacy so as not to offend southern audiences and even offering some some backhanded
compliments to the native Americans. At one point one of Custer's officers - an Englishman, gotta
cover all political bases - states that the only real Americans are
the native Indians themselves, and Custer agrees. The real heat is reserved for nasty corporate
businessmen (no kidding) who will do anything to make a profit, including send thousands of
whites to their doom in Indian territory, after selling guns to the "dirty redskins" (the words of
Charley Grapewin's grizzly scout character, not mine).

Summary:

Brash West Point cadet George Armstrong Custer (Flynn) is a terrible student but
is graduated initial to help in the Against Between the States. Held back by bureaucrats and encouraged
by Elizabeth Bacon, the young woman he admires (Olivia de Havilland), Custer uses the help of
General Winfield Scott (Sydney Greenstreet), army mistakes and incredible luck to immediately move
from shavetail lieutenant to a well-rounded general, pulling nutty a daring prosperity at Bull Run and then
turning the tide at Gettysburg in favor of the Weld. He marries 'Libby' and goes back to an
heavy-hearted civilian zest until he's given command of the Seventh Cavalry in the
Dakotas. There he whips a sentimental component into stock and fights the Sioux until Crazy Horse (Anthony
Quinn) sues for a concordat. But crooked politicians and businessmen, including George's old
nemesis Ned Sharp (Arthur Kennedy) conspire to break the treaty by arranging for Custer's
courts-warlike and spreading lies about a gold job action in the Sinister Hills. His reputation tarnished,
Custer pleads with President Grant to return to his fit out and struggle to avert debecle in the Dakota
vicinage.

They Died With Their Boots On

is the Warners' style at its peak. There's enough story here
for a ten-hour miniseries, but even though it's all packed into 140 minutes nothing seems unduly
hurried. Every moment gets its just due, and then the story moves on. De Havilland's noble wife is
so well established in some amusing scenes with Hattie McDaniel that her later appearances, mostly
expository story-pushers, don't come off as rushed. Characters like Sydney Greenstreet's fat General
and even Ulysses S. Grant are all given a few moments to make a proper impression. Forward momentum
is the key: Nobody stops to rehash events that have already passed.

Errol Flynn's dashing personality adapts so well to the flamboyant Custer that it is his image that
persists even in the face of later attempts to demythologize the (take your pick) hero / villain.
Discounting Robert Siodmak's disastrous Cinerama biography


Custer of the West


, which
can't seem to get anything right, the outrageous lampoon of Richard Mulligan in Arthur
Penn's


Little Big Man


pleased
the revisionists but never caught on. We seem as eager to assess Custer for what he was as we are to
look more closely at the politics behind the War of 1812, or the Alamo. Flynn's Custer effortlessly
contains a ridiculous number of inconsistencies. He's a born glory-hound but a man of honor who won't
sell out to corruption in business or government. He gladly battles Indians but constantly champions
their nobility and injust treatment. He's a drunkard forever closing the bars … and would rather
eat onions than drink anyway.

They Died With Their Boots On

probably gives historians heart
attacks and makes Native American activists spit blood. The charismatic Flynn makes their protests
seem beside the point.

Only one thing unites audiences in the face of such contradictions, and that's a good old-fashioned
American Death Wish. Both Libby and George approach his coming dee-mise like a God-willed suicide
pact,
and Custer puts his command in order by doing cute things like offering one officer a chance to
retire and dragging an old enemy into the fire with him, while quoting solemn oaths of honor.
Flynn's Custer doesn't really have a character arc, but the film does make a remarkably efficient
change from comedy to stern-faced drama. Custer keeps his dignity even though the Seventh rides
to glory by way of a simplified trap that every six year-old in the audience can see coming. In
this version, you see, Custer knew it was a trap and so wasn't really trapped, understand?
In a pleasant contrast with

The Charge of the Light Brigade

, a tale with a very
similar structure, Walsh and Flynn don't play up the heroics in Custer's violent end.

They Died With Their Boots On

is a heavy-duty workout for the second unit, which sees most
of the western end of the San Fernando Valley (especially Stony Point) enlisted to stand in for
everything from Dakota's Black Hills to the fields of Pennsylvania - You know, the brownish parts
of Gettysburg, with all the dry eucalyptus trees. In the big battle, don't forget to note the
clouds that are frequently superimposed to make backgrounds match. They can be seen remaining
static as shots pan, and showing through an occasional cavalryman's hat. And one has to appreciate
the spectacular aerial shot of Custer's troop moving in the foreground while a thousand mounted
Indians outflank them in the distance. Those faraway horses seem to be moving at at least eighty
m.p.h.! In the midst of all this is Savant's favorite Flynn horseriding shot: He reins in his steed
and it slides to a halt on its back legs like a skier sideswishing to a stop. Ultra-cool action,
that.

It almost makes one forget the audacious final scene, which outdoes John Ford's 'bury the facts'
kissoff scenes in

Fort Apache

and


The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance


.
Libby threatens to expose the corrupt businessman & politician with Custer's dying declaration, unless
they dissolve their affairs and resign. They do, and we're to understand that

that's

what has
kept George Armstrong Custer's true and noble role in American history secret all these years … he
was protecting the Indians in the name of America's honor, see? That script invention is too much
like many real-life patriotic 'heroes' who claim that higher loyalites forbid them from telling
the truth.

Warners'

They Died With Their Boots On

is intact and great-looking on DVD. Vault materials
must have been in good shape, for even dissolves and opticals have little grain. Max Steiner's robust
score includes all of the "Indian" cues he repeated for fifteen years, all the way through

The Searchers

; the brassy main themes contrast well with the romantic music for Libby, the
perfect officer's wife.

They Died With Their Boots On

must have seen general release in 1942, for Leonard
Maltin's

Warner Night at the Movies

extras are all from that year. A featurette championing
Army doctoring as a career stars an unbilled and very young Eleanor Parker as a spirited nurse.

A Tale of Two Kitties

is a cartoon with two cats that fully imitate Abbott and Costello, so
much so that I'm surprised the Universal lawyers didn't have it suppressed. They square off with
a proto-Tweety Pie character, and the violent results are hilarious.

The interview docu wisely throws its hands up at the subject of historical accuracy and concentrates
instead on the timeless appeal of the Flynn - de Havilland romantic pairing, and Flynn's preference
for director Walsh over that old slave-driver Curtiz.

Overall, the Errol Flynn Box is fine set of discs of films that are the sentimental favorites of
huge numbers of fans. It comes with a sixth disc, a new feature-length documentary called

The
Adventures of Errol Flynn

that takes a thorough look at his life starting with a funny
introduction on a Steve Allen quiz show, standing next to Don Knotts! The detailed show has great
film clips that include his first Australian film in 1932 and his disastrous unfinished

William
Tell

in 1954. The narrator is Ian Holm; it has interviews with Olivia de Havilland and even
addresses the accusation that Flynn was a Nazi spy. Turner has accumulated a fair number of these
superior biographical docus; this one is directed by David Heeley.

There are several good Flynn pictures still at large to make a followup second box a natural:

The Charge of the Light Brigade, Dawn Patrol, Edge of Darkness, The Adventures of Don Juan,
Gentleman Jim

.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Gracious, and Luckless,

Captain Blood

rates:

Movie: Excellent

Video: Truly Merit

Sound: Excellent

English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)

Supplements:

Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Night at the Movies 1935; Featurette

Captain Blood: A Swashbuckler Is Born

; 1935 Trailer Gallery; Audio-only Bonus:
Lux Disseminate Theater Production featuring Errol Flynn

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

rates:

Silent picture: Prime

Video: Good –

well-earned to extensive color registration problems

Sound: Excellent

English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)

Supplements:

Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Night at the Movies 1939;
Featurette

Elizabeth and Essex: Battle Royale

On a regulate of Bar, Piece-goods e freight, Open, and Jinxed,

The Sea Hawk

rates:

Flick picture show: Sterling

Video: Excellent

Resonate: Exceptional

English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)

Supplements:

Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Night at the Movies 1940;
Featurette

The Mountains Hawk: Flynn in Action

They Died With Their Boots On

rates:

Movie: Superb

Video: Excellent

Sound: Barring

English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)

Supplements:

Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Vespers all the time at the Movies 1942;
Featurette

They Died with Their Boots on: To Hell or Prestige

Escape from City

rates:

Movie: Excellent

Video: Good

with scattered color registration flaws

Sound: Excellent

English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)

Supplements:

Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Night at the Movies 1939; Featurette
Dodge City:

Go West, Errol Flynn

Packaging: Stay trunk

Reviewed: April 19, 2005