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THE ERROL FLYNN COLLECTION
My master’s favorite movie star has now become mine. If I wasn’t a dog, I’d like to be this handsome action star from the 1930s and 1940s whose legacy of great movies is required viewing for any actor today who aspires to play a pirate, a cowboy, or any other man of adventure. Especially one who has a way with the ladies. Five of Flynn’s biggest adventure hits are now out on DVD in amazingly vivid color restorations or incredibly sharp black and white, as they were originally released.

My favorite of the set is “The Sea Hawk,” perhaps the greatest pirate movie ever made, but the others are very close runners-up: “Captain Blood,” also a pirate movie; “Dodge City,” a classic western; “They Died With Their Boots On,” with Flynn playing General George Armstrong Custer at the ill-fated Little Big Horn massacre; and with Bette Davis in “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex.” My master said his older brother, “Johnny Boy,” was a teenage usher at a neighborhood theater in Chicago when “They Died With Their Boots On” was showing, and he loved it so much, he turned off his flashlight, stopped showing patrons to their seats, and hid in the balcony to watch the final action scene every time it showed. Part of the reason was to hear the rousing 7th Cavalry’s Irish charge song, “The Gary Owen.” Don’t settle for just one of these adventure classics, get the complete set which is handsomely boxed and includes a 6th disc which is a very fine biography of the great Flynn.

 

THE FOUR FEATHERS
There have been four or five versions of this adventure story, but none better than this 1939 British telling from Alexander Korda. John Clements plays a soldier coward who opts out of going to the Sudan to avenge General Gordon’s murder in an uprising in the late 1800s. His three best officer friends and his fiancé each give him a white feather symbolizing cowardice. Facing the reality that he is a coward, he sets out to clear his conscience and name in what becomes some of the highest high adventure ever put on film. The restoration is in gorgeous color, showing to full advantage the settings in both England and Africa. Forget the Heath Ledger muddle of a remake two years ago and see this original version. From MGM.




FINDING NEVERLAND
I guess I expected more from this highly-praised story of how J.M. Barrie came to write Peter Pan. Although I thought it was very good, it wasn’t what I had anticipated: great. I guess I’m part Peter Pan, because I always hope to see a great movie, even after so many disappointments in the new ones. I’ve seen a lot of great movies from the 1930s to 1950s, but not much in that category since. Even Johnny Depp wasn’t as good as I expected him to be. Any number of cardboard actors could have done as well. The boy named Peter in the movie was the best thing about it. My main problem with this movie was that while watching it, I couldn’t forget that pop star Michael Jackson is on trial for child molestation at his Neverland ranch in California.

I tried, but just couldn’t. From Miramax.

NOT ON THE LIPS
Based on a 1925 Parisian operetta, this delightful story set in 1920s Paris (as might be expected) has a typical operetta plot: a seemingly happily married couple encounters a series of comical misunderstandings. Okay, we’ve heard and seen that one before many times, but this French film stars Audrey Tautou, the winsome and winning star of Amelie, so we knew it would be good, and it is.

Of course, she and the rest of the excellent cast were in the good hands of the very talented French director, Alain Resnais, so how could it miss? From Wellspring, which is bringing us many of the best movies from Europe on DVD.

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
I was reminded of the 1950s 3-D movies while watching daggers fly all over the place in this Asian opus. You may feel as if you have to duck while watching it, but otherwise the story is very interesting and parts of it are actually sublime. Just be prepared for lots of martial arts violence and some sexuality. The plot hardly matters and you can watch it without the subtitles. From Sony Pictures

AGATHA CHRISTIE’S MARPLE, SERIES 1
The Brit mistress of mystery has one of her favorite sleuths, Miss Marple, take us through four very interesting and often engaging mysteries set in post-World War II England which recently showed on Brit television. Geraldine McEwan plays Miss Marple and she gets support from some top Brit actors including Derek Jacob, James Fox, John Hannah, Ian Richardson, and others. It’s a 4-DVD boxed set, each disc containing a mystery nearly two hours long. From Acorn Media.

BAD EDUCATION
I’m coming to discover that young Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal can’t make a bad movie, and he is among the few really interesting new actors from any country. He plays two roles in this excellent drama from Mexico’s hot new director, Pedro Almodovar - a young man who had been abused by a priest, and a blackmailing transvestite junkie. Okay, so that’s pretty heady stuff and not very family-friendly, but it’s quite a good movie told on many cranial levels. It’s not easy to follow, so be sure you’re wide awake when you watch it. From Columbia Tri-Star.

 

WHEN FATHER WAS AWAY ON BUSINESS
A boy in 1950s Yugoslavia thinks that’s why his father isn’t around the house anymore. Actually, Daddy is a away as a political prisoner because he’s been critical of Stalin and had an affair with a beautiful party officer. “A poignant, exuberant story,” said Time magazine. I liked it for its warmth and good humor. From Koch-Lorber.

 

BEHAVING BADLY
Judi Dench, one of my favorite Brit actresses, plays a misbehaving matron in this darkly humorous drama. She behaves impeccably good until her husband of 20 years chooses a younger model, then she lets her hair down and kicks up her heels, for good or bad. Joely Richardson also shines as a prematurely burned-out school teacher, and Gwen Watford as Dench’s former mother-in-law. Based on the witty novel by Catherine Heath, it’s “immensely satisfying, slyly subversive, and subtly romantic.” It’s a 2-DVD boxed set from Acorn Media.

A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG
I nearly fell asleep in my master’s lap as we watched this slow-moving story about people whose main objects in life are drinking, smoking, and reciting poetry and other literature to each other in a town near New Orleans. John Travolta plays a one-time literary professor and Gabriel Macht his young protégée who are as aimless as the story line in this mostly downer movie. Scarlett Johansson comes to live with the two drunks and if you want to know how that odd three-some couple makes out, see the movie, but be prepared to take several naps in the slower of the slow spots. From Sony Pictures.

BLESS ME, FATHER
The complete collection of the very funny Brit TV comedy series is now on DVD and I recommend it highly for gentle, often whimsical humor. Its been called a sort of religious “Odd Couple” set in a 1950s London suburb, about a rookie priest who comes to a help an aging pastor tend his flock. It struck me often that the grouchy pastor’s housekeeper should be sainted for putting up with his verbal abuse. From Acorn Media.

 

TITANIC REVEALED
My documentary pick of the month came out this spring to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the discovery of the watery resting place of the sunken RMS Titanic. Never-before-seen underwater footage narrated by host Dr. Robert Ballard tells how the great and tragic ship was found over 12,000 feet beneath the North Atlantic Ocean. It’s very exciting history, first broadcast last December on the National Geographic Channel on cable and satellite television. From Wellspring.

 

Bones to Pick

 

When will the Academy Awards honor Errol Flynn with an honorary posthumous Oscar? Is it because, as my master suspects, they don’t want to remind us of how good movies used to be, because they’re mostly so dreadful today?

And when will the great Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals come out on DVD? They deserve being restored and offered to the legions of fans of the dancing darlings of the 1930s and early 1940s. They’ve been available on VHS for years, so they shouldn’t be that hard to put onto DVD.

 

Maybe you would like to visit my master's web site with highlights of his huge collection of old movie magazines, Bijou Follies
Two more web sites I recommend are: Errol Flynn and Jeffrey Hunter