dual personalities

I missed Errol Flynn’s birthday last week on June 20, so I thought I would give him a shout out today on the anniversary of the battle of the Little Big Horn, also known as Custer’s Last Stand.

They Died With Their Boots On, a highly fictionalized version of George Armstrong Custer’s life, is nonetheless one of the best of Flynn’s 8 pairings with the inimitable Olivia de Haviland. It is also the last of the movies they made together. Made in 1941 and directed by Raoul Walsh, it features a veritable who’s who of Warner Brothers character actors, including a young Anthony Quinn as Crazy Horse, Sydney Greenstreet, Hattie McDaniel, Regis Toomey, Charley Grapewin, and on and on. But it is Olivia and Errol that make the movie.

I wanted to show the scene where the two part for the last time before George leaves for what we in the audience know will be his death in battle at the the Little Big Horn. (The scene is unfortunately unavailable.) It is a genuinely touching scene by two great actors. Errol is always at his best with Olivia; he seems to be trying and not just calling it in, so to speak.

It is also a particularly poignant scene because we know this couple will never star in another movie together and that Errol’s career will quickly dissolve as his personal life begins the inevitable downward spiral to an early death. As children watching, we knew this because our mother was a big Errol Flynn fan and she told us. Indeed, Errol Flynn’s life was in itself a cautionary tale–beauty, brains and talent are not enough. Olivia de Haviland knew this and she wisely distanced herself from the doomed Flynn.

In a side note, our great-grandfather, the original ANC, fought at the Battle of the Rosebud on June 17, 1876. A youth fresh from Vermont, he was the trumpeteer.