Uncle Scoopy's Fun House

Flynn

(1993)

Johnny Moronic's comments:

Actually filmed in 1989-1990, Flynn was released sometime after 1993

It is a biopic of Errol Flynn (Guy Pearce), a plucky Tasmanian kid and son of a famous biology professor who is sent to boarding school in Sydney before getting kicked out for having sex with the headmaster's daughter (apparently). Errol sets off into the world and after a hiccup at his first job, is on the streets until he worms his way into the birthday party for Penelope Watts (Claudia Karvan) and eventually they become engaged. Errol's always got big intentions and sees that gold has been found in Papua New Guinea, so he steals a prized piece of jewellery from Penelope, sells it and heads to PNG, completely unprepared and out of his depth. He summons the help of a mysterious German man, Klaus Reicher (Steven Berkoff), who sort of helps him and sort of gets him into trouble. Errol does find gold, but it is stolen from him, so sick of being the victim, Errol gets Klaus to help him do the robbing. After one heist, they are captured by the natives. Errol can't help himself and has his way with the chief's daughter and when he and Klaus escape the village, Errol shoots dead one of the tribesman, for which he is tried for murder, jailed, but escapes with the help of Klaus and decides to head back to Australia, where he falls into acting, isn't very good, but hears word that an unknown actor is to be in the new Charles Chauvel movie, Mutiny on the Bounty. Well, Errol sees an opportunity to impersonate the unknown actor and convinces Chauvel that he is that actor and you know the rest of the story.

Bizarre and underdone biopic that shows clear signs of padding and re-shoots. A very young Guy Pearce tries valiantly in an early role, but isn't given much help by the underdone and surprisingly sex-filled (but not the way you'd think) script. And it clearly looks like Flynn's life has been patched up from tidbits of information, some of which are clearly embellished or possibly false. There's also an astonishing amount of ADR exposition going on for a professionally made movie that would look sloppy in a no budget movie let along a multi-million dollar production. In all Flynn/My Forgotten Man is a big mess and manages to botch telling the rather interesting life of Errol Flynn. A poor movie and it shows...

There'd be a great book about Boulevard Films if someone would be bothered to write it. Frank Howson must have a million stories, a few he tells on the surprisingly great Boulevard of Broken Dreams DVD. According to Wikipedia (don't look at me like that), Claudia Karvan's quite brief role was originally shot by Rebecca Rigg, which would be interesting if they shot the same scenes, as Claudia has some brief nudity in the movie (her first shot nudity, I think) and I'm pretty sure that Rebecca Rigg has never had a nude scene although I haven't seen some stuff (Raw Nerve for one) and she barely acts any more except it seems with her husband Simon Baker or her friend Naomi Watts. She does have a sex scene in Tunnel Vision which I should bust out and recap at some stage. Such a shame...)

Claudia Karvan film clip (collage below)