Who knew Errol Flynn was so attracted to Lolita types?

TxMike

The title of this movie derives from the fact that so many of us associate Errol Flynn, the actor, with his swashbuckling role in "Robin Hood." In fact I have the restored DVD of that movie and I've never taken the time to see it all the way through. Now I need to do that!

Kevin Kline has always been one of my favorite actors and here he is very appropriate as Errol Flynn, and especially considering the physical resemblance. This is not a biography of the actor, in fact it covers only the last two years of his life, 1957 through 1959.

I never knew this about the man but he had a long history of affairs with underage girls, and was even prosecuted for statutory rape. In his later life represented by this movie he didn't seem to have any guilt about it and assumed those around him knew what was going on.

His last "love" was 15 when they met, Dakota Fanning in a very appropriate role as Beverly Aadland, with ambitions as a singer, dancer, and actress. Flynn met her quite by accident and he was immediately smitten. He invited her out "to discuss her career" but ended up seducing her, much to her surprise. In time it seems she actually learned to love this guy who was 33 years older than she.

Enter the mother, Susan Sarandon in a good performance as Florence Aadland. She was quite stricken with the idea that Flynn would befriend her little girl and help her career, and only when the three traveled to New York together, and she learned that Flynn and her daughter would be sharing a hotel room, and bed, did she realize what was going on.

Flynn was not healthy and at one point he mentions that 10 years earlier a doctor told him that with his lifestyle he had maybe 6 months left to live, so he made the best of it and he is still around. But in 1959, at the age of 50, he died of a heart attack in Canada where he had gone to sell his yacht, he needed money.

While they were shooting a movie out of the country Flynn dictated a revision to his will, to give Beverly 1/3 of his estate, but it was never signed and witnessed so it was invalid. Beverly went on to a quiet life and her mother was convicted and jailed for a time for child neglect.

Good movie to illuminate part of the life history of Errol Flynn. DVD from my public library.

score /10

TxMike 13 January 2016

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3394475/