In THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN, Errol Flynn Kids His Image.
Written: Jul 22 '00 (Updated May 13 '02)
Product Rating:
Pros: Strong script, Flynn, new star Viveca Lindfors, an elegiac Steiner recapitulating themes of former triumphs.
Cons: Lazy direction by Vincent Sherman. No heroine drawn with sufficient passion to support Juan's reputation.
The Bottom Line: A beguiling, self-deprecating performance by Errol Flynn in a witty, knowing script almost overcomes Vincent Sherman's sluggish direction in Flynn's last convincingly stylish swashbuckler.
By 1948, when Errol Flynn starred in THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN, his checkered life almost required he take the part, and it was to be his last good exercise with sword and rapier. His reputation may also have worked against the acceptance and financial success of the film. Time, ill-health, self-indulgence, legal and financial troubles were slowing his pace, and ever so slightly thickening his features. He was only 39, but he had lived a hundred years.
The Western Star Gene Autry said: "He spent more time on a bar stool, or in court, or in the headlines, or in bed, than anyone I knew."
In addition to his bad habits, Errol Flynn had suffered from his early youth a series of carefully concealed heart, back and kidney ailments which belied the image of health and vigor he projected on the screen. In THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN, all his problems were beginning to show up in his performance.
In several ways, the film is a jaunty, if grudging hail and farewell. Gathered together are some remnants from Flynn's glory days as a romantic action hero. Alan Hale (Little John in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN Hood) had played Flynn's sidekick in half a dozen films. (Looking hale indeed here, he nevertheless was dead in two years.)
Max Steiner, who provided musical scores for Flynn in THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (1936), DAWN PATROL (1938), DODGE CITY (1939), VIRGINIA CITY (1940), SANTA FE TRAIL (1940), THE DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON (1941), DIVE BOMBER (1941), DESPERATE JOURNEY (1942), SAN ANTONIO (1945), and the execrable SILVER RIVER (1948), returns one last time to help him out. (Steiner looked upon Flynn affectionately as a wayward son, and his score here recapitulates and expands upon several great scores from previous partnerships. It has both elegiac and playful elements -- such as a little salute he incorporates in honor of Flynn and his bride Nora Eddington [who sobered him up for a time]: "We're going to make a baby.")
But two important assets from past Flynn films are missing. Claude Rains (THE ADVENTURES OF ROBINHOOD, Curtiz, 1938) was to play the villainous Don Rodrigo, but he had to withdraw because of illness. And Mary Stuart, an unknown, in her one starring role, as Catherine (the real intended love interest), comes nowhere close in beauty or dramatic ability to Olivia De Havilland, who several times added a shimmering warmth and sly flirtatiousness to Flynn's most successful films.
THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN, in plot and action, although set in Spain rather than Italy, follows closely Alan Crossland's DON JUAN (1926), which starred John Barrymore. That film, with its synchronized musical score and sound effects, was the beginning of the end of the Silent Film. Significant, too, is that Errol Flynn patterned his career, and to some extent his behavior, after Barrymore, a hero of his boyhood.
It is the end of the 16th Century. Because of amorous adventures and intrigues, Don Juan is banished, with his squire Leporello (Hale), back to his native Spain. There, too, he has many enemies, and is not welcome, but he manages an audience with King Phillip the III (Romney Brent) and his beautiful Queen Margaret (Viveca Lindfors). Phillip follows a live and let live philosophy, but his Minister of State Don Rodrigo (Robert Douglas) is gathering more and more power to himself, and has no interest in giving refuge to a rival.
The Queen is attempting to protect her country and her husband. She needs an ally, even though she can't quite recognize Juan as that person. The Ladies in Waiting led by Catherine and Donna Elena (Andy Hardy's old girlfriend, Ann Rutherford), are naturally all for the witty, handsome Don Juan.
After a series of small scrapes, dalliances, and adventures, Don Juan prevents an overthrow of the Spanish Crown by first taking on Don Rodrigo's Guard (commanded by a trimmed down Raymond Burr as Captain Alvarez), and then confronting Don Rodrigo himself on the steps of the Court. This set piece was from a famous one in the original DON JUAN, which featured Barrymore's duel with sword and rapier, climaxed by a leap, knife in teeth, thirty feet down the stairway bearing the villain down to his death. Barrymore, at 44, performed his own stunt. It is not clear that Flynn does.
Among the additions to the original DON JUAN, of course, is the spoken word, penned by George Oppenheimer (A DAY AT THE RACES, additional dialogue), assisted by the reliable script doctor Harry Kurnitz (THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, 1949). These men were primarily comedy writers, and THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN reflects that fact. They gently mock the idea of The Great Lover in general, and Flynn in particular. Audiences of the time would have had no trouble appreciating, for instance, the following line: "My dear friend, there is a little bit of Don Juan in every man, but since I am Don Juan, there must be more of it in me!"
What takes the film down a notch, I think, is the direction of Vincent Sherman. Coming from a background in B-Westerns, THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN is probably the best assignment he was ever given. Unfortunately, he does not rise to the opportunity. Although he has a good screen play and almost a story board in the original DON JUAN, he stages dialogue scenes sluggishly and action slightly out of time. The pace and editing fail to impress.
Viveca Lindfors was the most successful of a string of Swedish actresses which Hollywood imported to replace the phenomenal Ingrid Bergman. Signe Hasso (A DOUBLE LIFE, 1949) worked longer than Marta Toren (SIROCCO, 1951), but Viveca Lindfors worked longer than both, rather steadily in the Movies until her death in 1995. (In her final film, made that year, Henry Jaglom's LAST SUMMER IN THE HAMPTONS, she plays a dying actress who once starred in a film about Don Juan, and Jaglom uses clips from our . . . DONJUAN . Lindfors died, as she knew she would, shortly afterwards.) Lindfors is very good in THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN, only her third film, but her role is a cool one, and she is unable to suggest the possibility of passion that should support Flynn as Juan.
Very striking are the Art Direction and Settings, which were nominated for an Academy Award. The Costumes actually won an Oscar for Marjorie Best, Leah Rhodes and Travilla.
The film ends as it began with Don Juan at a literal crossroads. Laporello, always loyal but resigned, advizes Juan to take the road that leads to wealth and safety, but at that moment, a carriage bearing a beautiful woman whizzes by, onto the other road. Don Juan laughingly rides off after her. (The beauty is Nora Eddington, uncredited, the new love of his life).
THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN was not as winning at the box office as Flynn's earlier Period Films, and his performance was attacked less for its qualities than for his scandal-stalked life. The next year, he buckled down to becoming a serious actor, as he often maintained he wished to become. He created a real character when he played Soames Forsyte in THAT FORSYTE WOMAN (with Greer Garson, directed by Compton Bennett, based on John Gallsworthy's The Forsyte Saga). But that performance also was dismissed, and Flynn slipped back into his old ways, his "wicked, wicked ways," to paraphrase the title of his autobiography.
He continued to make films, even Swashbucklers, but they were poor copies of the movies he made in the late 1930's. One can not help wonder, if had THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN and THAT FORSYTE WOMAN been accepted, might not this intelligent, talented man have continued on the right road? Probably not. Near the end of his life, he played a cameo of his hero John Barrymore in TOO MUCH, TOO SOON (Art Napoleon, 1958). Sadly enough, he stole the show.
Much better, then, to see Errol Flynn in THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN, when he could still laugh heartily at himself, and audiences could laugh with him.
---------------------------------
If you wish to explore all of Macresarf1's review, indexed by by title and category, many with URL's, paste to your browser and go to the following --
Flynn seems to be winking at his own off-screen image in the role he was born to play. As the legendary lover he returns to Spain and takes the post o...More at Family Video
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.