O Homem Perfeito

This is not really an 'haha' type of comedy, its more a movie that has a fun and silly (in a good way) feeling all over it. The events in the movie are fun and so are the quirky characters that are in the movie.

Basically the story is a fun and simple one. Rich guy played by Errol Flynn, out of a conservative uptight family, has for the first time in his real fun when he runs of with the girl Mona (Joan Blondell). Along their trip the couple meets some quirky characters and get into some silly situations. It seems to me that the movie its story was inspired by the Greek Odyssey.

Errol Flynn is of course perfect as 'the perfect specimen'. I was a little bit worried about his comical talent but he pulls of rather well in this movie. All of the other actors are also fine professional comedy actors who all help to make this movie a fun, simple and non-serious one to watch.

A fun movie, that is very well worth watching.

7/10

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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.

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.

I have to agree with the other review on the page...The Perfect Specimen is a far better screwball comedy than it's been given credit for. In fact, it's head and shoulders above Flynn's next screwball comedy, 1938's Four's A Crowd.

It helped that Flynn and Joan Blondell were pals off-screen, because they show a very comfortable and breezy rapport with each other on-screen. Flynn shows a light and pleasant acting touch in this, especially when compared to his ham-handed performances in Four's A Crowd or Footsteps In The Dark.

It's too bad this isn't available on video, because I think both Flynn fans and non-Flynn fans will discover a small treasure.

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.