Juan But Not Forgotten
You could look at it cynically and view Adventures of Don Juan as a career life support, seeing Errol Flynn going to back to doing what made him famous in the first place after a string of unsuccessful pictures at the box office but it is none the less Errol Flynn returning to do what he does best. Despite not having done a swashbuckler since The Sea Hawk in 1940, Adventures of Don Juan manages to recapture the magic of his earlier days in this very dialogue driven swashbuckler. Flynn’s signs of ageing are increasingly apparent but considering his health and status as a star this would have been the final time Flynn could have headlined a big budget production such as this.
The Technicolor here doesn’t have the striking vibrancy of The Adventures of Robin Hood but the beautiful, detailed backdrops and very large scale sets with immaculate attention to detail are superb. The only complaint I have production wise is the very obvious use of footage taken from The Adventures of Robin Hood which sticks out from the rest of a movie which was filmed a decade later. It’s a shame they couldn’t get Michael Curtiz to direct for one last Flynn adventure or Erich Wolfgang Korngold to do the music score, none the less Max Steiner’s score does the job. I also previously knew Viveca Lindfors as the teacher from the 1985 comedy The Sure Thing. To see her 37 years earlier play a Spanish queen in the 17th century was such a contrasting role.
Unlike John Barrymore’s take on Don Juan in 1926, Flynn’s Don Juan uses the character’s insatiable lust for woman for laughs rather than for tragedy (I doubt a film in the tone of the Barrymore Don Juan could be made during the code era). Flynn’s Don Juan is a charmer but with a tad buffoonery to him, who’s lovemaking antics threaten relations between England and Spain. However, Flynn injects some John Barrymore into his performance with his manner of speaking, which it should then come as no surprise that Flynn would later portray Barrymore in Too Much, Too Soon. What is also taken over from the Barrymore Don Juan is the famous breathtaking epic dive down the stairs, and it does not disappoint.
The two villains in Adventures of Don Juan, the King of Spain (Romney Brent) and the Duke de Lorca (Robert Douglas) attempt to hatch a plan to build an armada in secret for world conquest and use shady tactics along the way such as abducting subjects by force for the navy. This was only a few years after the Second World War had ended and the memories of Hitler were still vivid in people’s minds. Robert Douglas channels a bit of Basil Rathbone in his performance while the partnership between these two villains is the classic Emperor/Darth Vader set up; with one figure taking the public limelight and the other pulling the strings behind the scenes; as the Duke de Lorca puts it, “I have no desire to sit on a throne, I much prefer to stand behind it”.
Sat In Your Lap 