The Silver Screen Oasis

Jimmy Cagney as Lon Chaney, that's one I have to watch, I love both actors but see them very differently, I'm curious. If Dorothy Malone is in it too even better.

i saw it some time ago and think Cagney was quite good. I don't know much about Chaney but it seems a straight forward telling. It gives Cagney a chance to dress up in some of Chaney's characters but also gives a chance to show Chaney as a regular family man who had an interesting childhood.

Lon Chaney had a fascinating life and James Cagney is a great actor, I've added it to my rental list.

It's a quite entertaining film, even if it doiesn't stick too closely to the facts. The final scene in particular is really fiction at its finest. Lon Jr. admired Cagney's portrayal of his dad but apparently didn't think much of the movie. From what I read Lon Jr. had supplied Universal-International with his own script for the film (which probably would have stuck closer to the facts) but his version was vetoed.

But I like it.

Hollywood will only film the truth if they can't improve on it, I like both men enough to watch it, I hope Lon's full genius is more than hinted at, he was a technician just as much as he was an actor.

It gives Cagney a chance to dress up in some of Chaney's characters

It does. Cagney plays it well, and the story is entertaining, if soft-pedaled.

Hollywood will only film the truth if they can't improve on it

Novelist Carl Hiassen said of writing crime fiction, "Start with the truth. Then tone it down to make it believable!" I like that.

That's so true. And getting back to Errol Flynn, toning it down would make it far more believable, Errol managed to fit in more in his 50 years than most of us would in 80.

I am currently reading Maureen O'Hara's Autobiography "'Tis Herself" and she mentions an anecdotic experience with Errol Flynn at an event... More later

SO I'm going through stuff on Netflix to find some films (as if I don't have enough in my queue) and I come across the most baffling title only to find Errol Flynn is the star.

The Big Boodle. A snicker escapes me and I wonder not only if this is the goofiest title but also what is a Boodle.

Any thoughts on the word or the movie?

I got nothing, don't recognize it.... snicker

Maybe a Damon Runyon story?

I can't help either, I've never heard of it either.

I looked up the meaning of Boodle and this is what I found:

Money, especially counterfeit money.
Money accepted as a bribe.
Stolen goods; swag.
A crowd of people; caboodle.

Thanks. I've heard of caboodle but never just boodle. There must have been a better title.

Thanks for posting these articles, MissG! I read the one on Walsh and Flynn. It's very interesting and comes up with some fascinating ideas, the best of which was that Walsh's films with Flynn feature a sort of self reflexive leading character - one whose image is played with throughout each film, but never really deepened.

I am not sure that I buy that premise. I think in the best of his films with Walsh, Flynn is chastened and deepened, but not bowed in spirit. I do agree about Flynn's characters all being actors of one sort or another, playing a role, or obsessed with their own looks or image. In a few of his films with Walsh, he plays a man who is almost comical at the start, who is inflated with his own vanity, sometimes rightly, or sometimes in a more ambiguous way. In some of these films, like Uncertain Glory or Gentleman Jim, he's the beast, as in Beauty and the Beast, except that at the end, he is left with all the qualities he had at the beginning. Which is what we all want, isn't it? We want our beast, not the handsome prince. It endears us to Flynn, because he is so willing to make fun of his image. How else can such a handsome man become human to us?

However, in other films with Walsh, like They Died With Their Boots On, there is certainly change happening to the character. One can even use Gentleman Jim as an example for this opposite viewpoint - that Jim Corbett has become acutely aware that the fame he is literally fighting for is fleeting, that it isn't all that it's cracked up to be - JUST LIKE FLYNN. The scene after the fight with Sullivan tells us that. Corbett's changed, but he acts as if he hasn't. Otherwise, there's no greatness to the film. His image is looked at in a very frank, and very deep way in the Walsh films, just as Cary Grant's image is played with in his later films. But I think maybe this vision of Walsh's is a little deeper than the jokes seem to suggest.

In virtually all of the Walsh films, Flynn is someone who is remaking himself out of a desperate need to be the best, or because of circumstances that would lead to his imprisonment, which would be the death of him. His mercurial nature was not something that was easily captured, and in the movies, Walsh was able to use that free spiritedness to discuss what heroism was, to discuss what we as Americans, or Westerners, or Allies value. His heroes are not wise, and they dream too hard. But they do one good thing, and that too is a fleeting gift.

I simply don't agree that Flynn was not a good actor. I do think he was an actor divided. He seemed impelled by his own frustrations with his image to destroy it, even to the point of putting his career in jeopardy. His image is not really a bad one now, is it? But he was unable to stop himself from sabotaging the movies he was making, even when they successfully played with or deepened that image like Walsh's did. He at once glories in the fakery, and hates it, and I think there is a case to be made that this is what makes him great to watch on screen, at least while he remained invested in the outcome of his films.

In the end, this article about Flynn and Walsh was less than satisfying. It starts with a questioning tone that seemed to be leading to answers, but ended without coming to any conclusions or confirming any of it's hypotheses about Flynn or Walsh. While I liked the questions, I am more and more finding this kind of assumptive writing discouraging. I found Marilyn Moss's book on Walsh very hard to get through, because she too assumes things about her subject, without really showing us any reasons to believe those assumptions. They all start out so well, with some dynamite thoughts, but in the end, I'm left saying to myself, "Now how on earth did you get from that great beginning to this conclusion?"