jkogrady

A runaway success in Europe, Flynn's Don Juan did not do so well

in the U.S. Nevertheless it is one of his best pictures and

deserves to be better known. Vincent Sherman, the director, does

not quite give it the slam-bang Curtiz touch, but instead imparts an

old fashioned worldly-wise flavor that is right here. The plot is

absolutely unrelated to Warner Bros' 1926 "Don Juan" with John

Barrymore, an actor who has sometimes been compared with

Flynn and who was even impersonated by him once in "Too Much,

Too Soon". Anyway, Flynn and Alan Hale Sr. were born to play Don

Juan and Leporello, and the movie was barely made in time, a few

years before Hale died, and before Flynn deteriorated too much.

Slated for production as early as 1945, endless delays caused by

logistical problems (not least of which was Flynn's increasing

alcoholism), it finally emerged at the end of 1948. Sherman

deserves a great deal of credit for making it happen at all. It is

given a lavish treatment all round, and the set designers did

exemplary work, particularly a superb massive staircase just

made for epic fencing duels. Romney Brent is spot on as the

befuddled king, and Robert Douglas is almost too velvety a villain;

what other color than black could he dress in? Viveca Lindfors,

who would later win a considerable reputation as an actress in

more serious Scandinavian movies, was at this stage merely an

ingenue for Warner Bros.; but she is for my money the greatest

leading lady Flynn ever had, stunningly beautiful and absolutely

credible in the part of an Austrian princess married to a pointless

king. Erich Korngold would likely have done the music had he not

given up on films and left Warners by the time this picture was

made; and his friend and compatriot Max Steiner has written a

score which is clearly a tribute to the Korngold style, and worthy of

both of them. Errol Flynn had a real knack for light comedy which

the studio seldom let him indulge fully; but swashbucklers and

screwball comedies are cousins under the skin, and here Flynn

found his real metier. Some of the best bits come early. One of his

inamorata complains "You've made love to so many women".

Without a beat of hesitation Juan replies, "Catherine. An artist may

paint a thousand canvases before achieving one work of art.

Would you deny a lover the same practice?" How many of you

male types out there could have come up with that line that fast?

Later on an irate husband says, "You're caught!" to which Juan

replies, "The Story of my life". Flynn was a limited actor, but within

those limits he was superb. Nobody had more grace, more

charm, more disillusioned humor. No man could enter or exit a

throne room with greater aplomb. Feminine friends of mine still

get a bit woozy over him, 38 years old as he was at the time. It's an

ideal marriage of an actor to a part.

This is, I believe, only the second movie to be made in the gloriously new three-strip Technicolor process, and it must be said that cinematographer Howard Greene and Selznick's always reliable crew of art directors turned in a stunning performance. At a time when color was not well understood by most technicians, these guys pulled off a virtuoso turn. The thing looks fabulous from end to end; lovely desert shots under all kinds of lighting conditions, and a generally underplayed and painterly use of color.

Then there is the music: one of Max Steiner's most magical scores, although unfortunately renters of the video will not quite be able to appreciate it as it deserves to be. Max wrote nearly two hours of music for what turned out to be a 79 minute picture; a good deal of it was lost and Selznick's sound engineers had a tendency to mix it under in such a way that its distinctiveness is much muted. This problem is exacerbated in the usually reliable Anchor Bay's VHS issue; they went overboard with the noise reduction filters and the result in many places is a blurry mush that does scant justice to Steiner's often piquant scoring. (Later: In the DVD this has been largely rectified). Some of the best passages were left on the cutting room floor altogether... All of this visual and audible loveliness has been lavished on a story of truly astonishing triviality, which is a pity, as the Robert Hichens novel had rather more depth. (Count Antioni, for instance, is a converted Muslim in the book; but 1936 Hollywood would not tolerate that. Would they today, I wonder?) Marlene Dietrich has to be the only woman on earth who would wander about the uncharted depths of the Sahara in high heels and a Travis Banton silk confection of a gown; the most horrendous sandstorms fail to displace a single hair of her coiffure. Charles Boyer strives manfully with awful dialogue and almost brings it off. Second tier characters like Joseph Schildkraut and the ever stalwart C. Aubrey Smith fare better, and Basil Rathbone is always good to see. Tilly Losch's hoochie- koochie dance in the Arab dive is positively embarrassing. The whole thing was definitely a miscalculation on Selznick's part, and he lost a bundle. Nevertheless it is well worth a look if you are a student of early color. Film music aficionados will have to take my word for it on the superb qualities of the score; the existing movie barely hints at them. This music cries out for a good new recording, like the many others that are coming out these days of classic picture scores.