Master of Ballantrae (1953)
Posted: August 28th, 2007, 5:30 pm
Master of Ballantrae (1953) which I came across recently, is late, late in the day for that favorite bad boy, Errol Flynn but if only Robert Louis Stevenson could've met Flynn, I suspect he would've enjoyed his company, despite the filmmakers' considerable liberties with Stevenson's convoluted, rather complicated plot centering around the disastrous effect of the defeat of the rebels at Culloden on Scotland in 1746. Btw, bring this battle up sometime at a Highland Games Festival and you'll hear all about it just like it happened yesterday! Ah, the Gaels have such a way of living in the moment, don't they?
Yes, Errol's eyes have bags under their bags and occasionally he looks a wee bit drawn, but he still has a zestful way with the always absurdly wonderful dialogue that this type of adventure tale teems with...as when, after his intended (Beatrice Campbell, who could have been Deborah Kerr's icier twin) delivers a blistering assessment of his character, he comments, with relish, "What a bride she'll be!" Of course, Flynn has also been making whoopie with the local tootsie, played appealingly if inexplicably by French actress Yvonne Furneaux. I found her infinitely more interesting than the aristocratic Campbell.
Anthony Steel, who played Flynn's much younger, straight arrow brother, has little to do, though he does seethe nicely with jealousy, fealty to his lineage and walks one heck of a narrow moral tightrope throughout much of the pic. Felix Aylmer as Laird and Poppa to Flynn and Steel (cripes, mom must've been quite the looker for the lads to have won this divergent roll of the genetic dice) and Mervyn Johns both seem to have shown up largely for a fairly easy payday.
No resting on his laurels for Errol Flynn however. His rollicking screen life takes him from Scotland to the Caribbean and back again.
Flynn also finds time to be stabbed, shot, drowned, knocked unconscious and almost hanged more times in this movie than just about any other of his considerable adventure flicks.
He teams here with a rascally Roger Livesey as an Irishman hauling about 12 tons of Hibernian blarney around the seven seas. Livesey, who does look as though he's having as much fun as Alan Hale ever could in similar roles, plays one of the Wild Geese, introducing himself oh, so colorfully by claiming that "You have the honor to address Colonel Francis Burke, gentleman of Dublin, chevalier of France, and hunted refugee of a devastated ragtag army." And, faced with certain death, Livesey cites his main complaints as "Not [having] much time to remember all the girls you've known, all the laughter you've heard, all the gold you've spent, and all the plans you had to spend more. The places we've not seen, Jamie! The things that lie about the world, the fun of it!"
Jacques Berthier as an aesthetic French pirate with a longing for the finer things in life makes for an interesting foil of Flynn and Berthier's second in command, Matthew Bull, is a dull heavy as played by Francis De Wolf. One longs for a Laird Cregar to reappear on the poop deck.
With a few scenes actually filmed in Scotland, Master of Ballantrae features an all too brief scene of misty moors and Highlands before we are whisked back to the soundstage for several scenes. Veteran director William Keighley certainly maintains a brisk enough pace throughout the film, though one can't help occasionally longing for the dash of a Michael Curtiz at the height of his powers. Despite the fact that several people on the web seem to find this second rate, it was a Flynn film that I was happy to see, just for one last chance to see the great adventurer show everyone else how it ought to be done, one more time.
Does anyone else like or dislike this movie?
Yes, Errol's eyes have bags under their bags and occasionally he looks a wee bit drawn, but he still has a zestful way with the always absurdly wonderful dialogue that this type of adventure tale teems with...as when, after his intended (Beatrice Campbell, who could have been Deborah Kerr's icier twin) delivers a blistering assessment of his character, he comments, with relish, "What a bride she'll be!" Of course, Flynn has also been making whoopie with the local tootsie, played appealingly if inexplicably by French actress Yvonne Furneaux. I found her infinitely more interesting than the aristocratic Campbell.
Anthony Steel, who played Flynn's much younger, straight arrow brother, has little to do, though he does seethe nicely with jealousy, fealty to his lineage and walks one heck of a narrow moral tightrope throughout much of the pic. Felix Aylmer as Laird and Poppa to Flynn and Steel (cripes, mom must've been quite the looker for the lads to have won this divergent roll of the genetic dice) and Mervyn Johns both seem to have shown up largely for a fairly easy payday.
No resting on his laurels for Errol Flynn however. His rollicking screen life takes him from Scotland to the Caribbean and back again.
Flynn also finds time to be stabbed, shot, drowned, knocked unconscious and almost hanged more times in this movie than just about any other of his considerable adventure flicks.
He teams here with a rascally Roger Livesey as an Irishman hauling about 12 tons of Hibernian blarney around the seven seas. Livesey, who does look as though he's having as much fun as Alan Hale ever could in similar roles, plays one of the Wild Geese, introducing himself oh, so colorfully by claiming that "You have the honor to address Colonel Francis Burke, gentleman of Dublin, chevalier of France, and hunted refugee of a devastated ragtag army." And, faced with certain death, Livesey cites his main complaints as "Not [having] much time to remember all the girls you've known, all the laughter you've heard, all the gold you've spent, and all the plans you had to spend more. The places we've not seen, Jamie! The things that lie about the world, the fun of it!"
Jacques Berthier as an aesthetic French pirate with a longing for the finer things in life makes for an interesting foil of Flynn and Berthier's second in command, Matthew Bull, is a dull heavy as played by Francis De Wolf. One longs for a Laird Cregar to reappear on the poop deck.
With a few scenes actually filmed in Scotland, Master of Ballantrae features an all too brief scene of misty moors and Highlands before we are whisked back to the soundstage for several scenes. Veteran director William Keighley certainly maintains a brisk enough pace throughout the film, though one can't help occasionally longing for the dash of a Michael Curtiz at the height of his powers. Despite the fact that several people on the web seem to find this second rate, it was a Flynn film that I was happy to see, just for one last chance to see the great adventurer show everyone else how it ought to be done, one more time.
Does anyone else like or dislike this movie?