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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Biography of Flynn that Rocks! Cheers to McNulty!, February 16, 2005
This review is from: Errol Flynn: The Life and Career (Hardcover)
This book rocks! I was given it as a gift for Christmas, and when I first unwrapped it and saw the cover, I was very wary - I said, "Uh-oh, yet another biography of Flynn?" I had seen some of the miserable ones written in the past, like Higham's and Bret's, and had feared for the worst. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised! This book took me on a wonderful flight from page one, and I didn't land until the last page, when I was left panting with excitement. Never boring or written with an eye to the pedestrian market, this book challenges and leaves the reader wanting more. It is written with great sympathy to Flynn, and at times some readers might think that it borders on sentimentality , but it never crosses the line. I, like many other readers, are sick and tired of all those quick-buck trash tell-all bios, from Higham to Kitty Kelly, that cater to people's morbid curiosity, but which employ no footnotes or documentation telling the reader where the author has gotten his or her information. Not so here! Mr. McNutly, a scholar in layman's clothing, carefully documents everything he claims, and for this I, and many other readers, will be deeply and lastingly grateful. And by the way, what's with these prattling blowhards who keep complaining - in English (or is that English?) and other languages about the price? I thought that it was against amazon's rules for reviewers! Look, sport, if you can't afford the book, then don't buy it; and if you can afford it, then shut up! I wish I could talk more about all there is in this book to admire, but I don't want to be boring - something that doesn't seem to trouble some of the other "reviewers" during their long-winded screeds - so I will simply say, in short, that this book will certainly be of use LONG after the dollars shelled out for it have been totally forgotten. And I am sure that the Flynn family will be very grateful - at long last - for a balanced work about Errol that satisfies both the average reader and the seasoned film scholar/critic. May I join them in expressing profound thanks to Mr. McNulty for his book, and for the great effort he has put into it? Bravo, Sir! May you and your kind increase!
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"I like my whiskey old and my women young", February 11, 2005
This review is from: Errol Flynn: The Life and Career (Hardcover)
At least 28 books have been written about swashbuckler Errol Flynn. Perhaps the most famous is Charles Higham's 1980 biography. It wasn't the best. This is. Thomas Mcnulty's "Errol Flynn: The Life and Career" discards myths and explodes the legends. Using legal documents, court records, newspaper clippings, eyewitness reports, and Errol Flynn's own diary, it concludes with the most accurate(and revisionist) history yet. Errol Flynn was born in Tasmania in 1909. A rebel, he left school at an early age, flaunting his mother's wishes. Literally a South Seas beach-bum at age 24, Flynn was signed as Fletcher Christian in the low budget "Wake of the Bounty". Viewed by an agent, Flynn was contracted by Warner Bros. studios. 2 years later he starred in 1935's "Captain Blood". By 1938, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" had made him a superstar. Handsome and athletic at 6'2", Flynn charmed pretty actresses and teenage fans alike. He enjoyed Hollywood night-life. But alcoholism and drug-use dulled his senses and tarnished his looks. By the late 1940's, a spectacular film career was spiralling downward. 3 failed marriages produced added stress and financial burden. Errol Flynn died of a heart attack in Vancouver on Oct. 14, 1959. He was 50 years old. For the first time here, author McNulty reviews Flynn's movies and TV appearances in lavish detail. McNulty acknowledges his fine acting in Edmund Goulding's "Dawn Patrol(1938)". Using his own money, Flynn bankrolled a lavish Cinemascope version of "William Tell" in 1954. But 8 weeks into shooting, the film shut down. Finances had run out. Today, a small Tyrolean movie set exists near Lake Como, Italy. This tourist attraction is all that remains of ""William Tell". 2 dozen reels of the aborted movie are locked away in Boston University's Special Collections Dept..And to this day, "William Tell" has never been seen by the public. In 1957, Flynn co-starred in Ernest Hemmingway's "The Sun Also Rises". Flynn plays middle-aged playboy Mike Campbell; his performance a haunting, resonant self-parody. In one scene, Flynn sits alone in a darkened European hotel room. Nursing a cocktail, he muses on his life, and drinks-in how it all might have been. The critics went wild. McNulty reviews the 1942 rape trial, and includes almost 100 photos; many rare and unseen before. One of the most intriguing pictures is of Flynn with his idol, John Barrymore, at a Hollywood party. Flynn and Barrymore were both one-time matinee idols. But they shared something else. Errol Flynn and John Barrymore had failed relationships with their mothers. Barrymore's mother died young, and he was raised by his grandmother, Mrs. John Drew(Louisa Lane). On his deathbed in 1942, Barrymore kept mumbling her name: Mummum. In Flynn's autobiography, he wrote "All my life I have tried to find my mother and I have never found her. My father has not been Theodore Flynn, exactly, but a will-o-the-wisp just beyond, whom I have chased and hunted to see him smile upon me, and I shall never find my true father, for the father I wanted to find was what I might become, but this shall never be..."This new biography explores the complex, sensitive Flynn as well. His fictional book, "Beams End", is a robust, tender tale of sailor/world travellers; searching, searching for the mysteries just around the next lagoon. McNulty's book may almost go to far in defending Flynn's self-destructive life-style, but it doesn't. In the end, it finds compassion, not sentimentality. Sadly, film director Irving Rapper said it best: "He was a very lucky boy. He had the whole world in the palm of his hand and threw it all away".
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
AN OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT!!!, February 12, 2005
This review is from: Errol Flynn: The Life and Career (Hardcover)
This is a superior book about Errol Flynn. The range is encyclopedic and the writing meticulous, at points even poetic. Packing an extraordinary amount of information between two covers, McNulty somehow manages to bring to life the much-abused Swashbuckler in the most engaging way. I have to believe that the enormous amount of research that went into this book is a testament to both the author's industry and his status as a budding writer of first-rate biographies. I had no problem at all with the price, which is typical of McFarland; their marvelous bindings and acid-free paper will last for centuries. (By the way, ignore the ranting and raving of the character who keeps leaving the silly "one star" reviews - he's well known as an obsessive crank who bears a grudge against the author which is as irrational as it is persistent . This individual, sadly, doesn't read any better than he writes, and, judging from his grammar and spelling, he doesn't do either very often; his speed is comic books.) I found one of the best things about this book to be the photos, which are outstanding, and the bibliography knocks the ball out of the park. Here is a volume that must be given its due: it provides a richly textured, fascinating treatment of an extremely difficult topic, and it should be treasured accordingly. Kudos to Mr. McNulty!
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