The Perfect Specimen

I find most of Errol Flynn's minor films, well...minor. But this one is an exception. The premise seems one-joke gimmicky: Flynn has been raised by his grandmother to be perfect in every way, except that he lacks any experience of life, being kept a prisoner on her estate until Joan Blondell breaks through the fence surrounding the estate with her car, (a recurring, unsubtle motif). She convinces him to escape and see what life is like and he eventually does so, leading to a series of amusing misadventures reminiscent of 'It Happened One Night'. As reviewer 'SimonJack' points out, both films are based on magazine article by the same author, Samuel Hopkins Adams. If felt this to be as good but the I've always felt that 'it Happened' was a little over-rated, at least by the Oscars. Both films are amiable and fun and worth watching.

Flynn does a good job of playing the good-natured innocent. The flimsy premise comes not to even matter that much as he becomes just a guy trying to become independent from his grandmother and who has fallen for Blondell. This is one of Joan's best roles. In other films I've seen, she's the wise-cracking girlfriend of the hero or heroine. Here she's a romantic lead not at all dependent on zingers. The emotions of a woman falling in love but unsure she wants to join that family play well over her face. The film is full of Warner's wonderful character actors who, as a group, probably contributed as much to their films as their stars did.

This film might have its critics, but for me it's always a delight to see good-natured humour given a chance to shine in the hands of great actors. Errol Flynn was one of the most underrated comedians of any age. He was always prepared to send himself up as easily as anyone else and few others could have carried this film off especially playing opposite the crackerjack Joan Blondell. Add May Robson, Allen Jenkins and Edward Everett Horton and you've got a great little film that would make anyone forget about the world's woes for a hour or three. Not to be missed by any joker with a heart and most people without one. Give in to a bit of fun now and again and remember that life is all meat and potatoes.

From director Michael Curtiz that uses the Warner Brothers stock company of contract players to great effect.

Wealthy and domineering Leona Wicks (May Robson) runs a tyrannical household, and nothing is more important to her than her grandson and heir Gerald (Errol Flynn). He's been raised in seclusion on her palatial estate and tutored in every subject imaginable since infancy in order to make him into "the perfect specimen", a man more than capable of taking over the family's interest when the time comes. However, his sheltered upbringing has made him bored and restless, and when the beautiful Mona Carter (Joan Blondell) comes literally crashing through the gate, he takes her advice to journey out into the world and see what's out there, an odyssey they take together which leads to love, naturally.

Flynn and Blondell make a great couple, with his easy physical grace and put-on naivete meshing well with Blondell's earthy sense and beauty. I also liked Jenkins and Moore as another that they literally bump into and form an unlikely friendship with. The movie lost a point or two from me, though, as soon as Hugh Herbert showed up and started to be "funny". Robson is good at playing cantankerous old ladies, but she nearly crosses the line from humorous to insufferable. Still, this was a very fun comedy, one that should be better known, and one that could easily be remade to some success in any era.

The Perfect Specimen (Michael Curtiz, 1937) is a fun Warner Bros comedy, with Errol Flynn cast against type as the eponymous figure: a sheltered heir to a small fortune, imprisoned within the ivory towers of his grandmother's estate. One day sassy chick Joan Blondell smashes through the fence and drives off with his heart. Not literally, of course, that wouldn't play so well to a mainstream audience. The film is episodic and slight, but unapologetically so, with some amusing set pieces that include Flynn's roadside punch up with hopeless pugilist Allen Jenkins. The ever-likable Jenkins (later the voice of Top Cat's Officer Dibble) is just one of a heap of well-known character actors turning up here, along with Hugh Herbert, May Robson, Harry Davenport and Edward Everett Horton – stealing the film hands down as a pathetically subservient, nervy personal secretary. There's the odd concession to high culture, with a recurring reference to Cervantes' Don Quixote, but mostly this is standard screwball stuff, utilising the considerable charm of its impressive cast.

Gerald Wicks is being groomed by his dictatorial millionaire grandmother to be a responsible pater familias in total seclusion from the world, "a lily in a hothouse", he calls it. Then one day Mona, a tough-as-nails female reporter, comes crashing through the gates and before long Gerald takes off on his own to seek out his newfound friend and they set out to explore life together.

Admittedly, this is a very small film, and one that doesn't quite know how to hold itself together. The script is filled with loose ends and blind alleys, and a lot of the dialogue must have seemed dated even in 1937. Having said that, this movie boasts Joan Blondell and a very young Errol Flynn, and their easy banter is delightful. She never photographed this well ever again, and Flynn ... well, suffice it to say that the director makes the most of all his chances to have his strapping young star-to-be stripped to the waist, beefcake galore!

AND the movie has a handful of wonderfully quirky bit parts, not many of them exactly organically interwoven in the whole, but they are never less than entertaining.