Want to know the best Errol Flynn movies? How about the worst Errol Flynn movies? Curious about Errol Flynn’s box office grosses or which Errol Flynn movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Errol Flynn movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place.
Even though I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable movie buff, I knew very little about Errol Flynn before researching and writing this page. I basically knew two facts about Errol Flynn. One, he is the most famous Robin Hood of all-time and two, he made some pirate movies.
After a month of reading numerous books, checking out websites and watching a few documentaries on him, I am now much more familiar with the life and career of Errol Flynn. I would highly recommend checking out the Errol Flynn Blog for even more information on the life and times of Errol Flynn….just follow this link….The Errol Flynn Blog.
Errol Flynn (1909-1959) was born in Tasmania. As a child he used to play with a wooden sword that his parents told him had belonged to Fletcher Christian. Many times he would play on his grandfather’s boat…acting out Douglas Fairbanks pirate movies. This training would come in handy when he turned his attention to acting. He would appear in his first film when he was 24. By the time he was 26 he had already secured his first starring role in a big budget movie, Captain Blood. Captain Blood was a huge success and turned Flynn into a star. At 28 he turned into a superstar with his performance as Robin Hood in 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood.
From 1935 to 1950 Flynn was one of the most successful actors in Hollywood. However his “playboy lifestyle” began to catch up with him. Starting around 1950 his movie career started to stall as his off screen lifestyle started to impact his health. He would regularly smoke at least a pack of cigarettes a day and drank heavily. Problems with his liver and heart eventually led to a fatal heart attack in 1959. Errol Flynn has 64 acting credits from 1933-1959. In the table below Ultimate Movie Rankings ranks 50 of his movies in 7 different sortable columns. Television roles, cameos, and shorts were not included in the rankings.
Errol Flynn Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Errol Flynn Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort Errol Flynn movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Errol Flynn movies by adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Errol Flynn movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)… **** If the domestic totals are the same as the worldwide totals…then worldwide totals are unknown
- Sort Errol Flynn movies by how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Errol Flynn movie received.
- Sort Errol Flynn movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- Blue link in Co-star column takes you to that star’s UMR movie page
10 Possibly Interesting Facts About Errol Flynn
1. Errol Flynn was the first actor to play Fletcher Christian in a film that had sound. He played Christian in 1933’s The Wake of the Bounty…..later Clark Gable, Marlon Brando and Mel Gibson would play the same part.
2. Errol Flynn and the Perry Mason connection. One of his first Hollywood movies was The Case of the Curious Bride…which was one of the first ever Perry Mason movies. Flynn got to play the corpse. Later Flynn would co-star with Raymond Burr in Mara Maru….Burr would later go on to fame playing Perry Mason on the television series.
3. Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland were one of the screen’s most popular couples. They would appear in 9 movies together from 1935 to 1943. Olivia de Havilland is still very much alive as she approaches the century mark.
4. Errol Flynn was married 3 times in his life. His first marriage to Lila Damita produced a son named Sean. His second marriage to Nora Eddington produced two daughters named Deirdre and Rory. His final marriage to Patrice Wymore produced one daughter named Arnella.
5. His son Sean, followed in his dad’s footsteps and has 10 IMDB credits to his name. His most famous movie role was in The Son Of Captain Blood (1962). The Son of Captain Blood was a sequel to the movie that made Errol Flynn famous, Captain Blood(1935). Later Sean Flynn turned towards a career as a freelance photojournalist. Sadly, Sean Flynn went missing while on assignment in Cambodia in 1970.
6. The saying …”In Like Flynn” became popular when Flynn was tried for statutory rape in 1942 but was acquitted….during the very high profile case, comedians of the day started to use the saying and it caught on.
7. His drinking was legendary.…he would inject oranges with vodka and eat them during his breaks so no one would know he was drinking on the set….during a play in the late 1950s his assistant would stage alcohol throughout the set, so Flynn could drink while performing.
8. Errol Flynn and Alan Hale Sr. (one of my favorite character actors) appeared in 11 movies together. Alan Hale Sr. was the father of Alan Hale Jr….better known as The Skipper on Gilligan’s Island.
9. The movie My Favorite Year is based on Mel Brooks’ encounter with Flynn on a television show in the 1950s….in that movie Peter O’Toole played the Flynn character. Also Jude Law portrayed Errol Flynn in The Aviator.
10. Check out Errol Flynn’s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Steve’s Epic Errol Flynn You Tube Video
If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.
1 HI MO In my perception Flynn like Mr Mumbles, Bogie, Monroe and the Burtons is one of those movie stars whose hype transcends what they actually did on the screen. His womanising, drinking, larger than life antics and general hell-raising were great copy for tabloids and gossip magazines. David Niven claims that he broke off his friendship with Flynn because the latter developed a romantic crush on David. There even used to be, and for all I know may still be, allegations in the public domain that Flynn was a Nazi spy during the 2nd World War.
2 Anyway my own interest in Errol solely relates to his legendary status as a movie star so I welcome your Flynn videos and the POSTERS in selections 50-26 that I admire most are (1)Lilacs in the Spring. Flynn who was broke made that one and King’s Rhapsody with Anna Neagle in the hope that she and her husband Herbert Wilcox who produced and directed the two films would bankroll a private film project that Errol had started on [William Tell] but they allegedly spurned him in the end and the film was never completed – that’s the Brits for you! (2) Too Much Too Soon which doesn’t leave “too much” to the imagination! (3) Mara Maru – an awful movie but great posters (4) Istanbul, a remake of the Fred MacMurray/Ava Gardner 1947 Singapore (5) Case of the Curious Bride (6) the foreign language one for Another Dawn (7) Crossed Swords with saucy Gina very prominent (8) the foreign language one for Master of Ballantrae and (9) a really stunning one for The Dark Avenger.
3 My notes record only 3 STILLS in the bottom 25 entries (1) the classy opening one – but “Who was that Lady?” (2) the lobby card if it was that for 4’s a Crowd (3) from Silver River – Flynn was never especially know for westerns but he made a number of them and was well-suited to the genre I thought. Flynn was actually voted 10th greatest western star of 1946 in a British poll – but what would the Brits know about the Wild West!
Bob, just noticed your post, did it just turn up? I’m losing track of old posts here.
Thanks for reviewing the first half of my Errol Flynn video, it is appreciated.
That opening still features Flynn with Olivia de Havilland relaxing on the set of Robin Hood. I do mention this on the video page in the box under the title.
As you know I don’t like adding captions to the stills, too distracting. I like letting people try and guess the film or leading lady before the poster comes up.
Some photos do have the movie title on the white border at the bottom of the still but by the time you look down to read it I’ve already panned into the shot and the writing is gone. 🙂
I think that was Ann Sheridan in the still for Silver River.
Four’s a Crowd’s lobby card features young Olivia de Havilland in bathing suit (cue mad scramble to view video).
Flynn was a good swashbuckler, but he was a paedophile (by his own admission).
Hey Mark…..I agree he was a good swashbuckler….and had some serious issues off screen….but generally we only look at the star’s movie career. I will say his legal issues, like Robert Mitchum’s seem to enhance his movie persona. Thanks for stopping by.
Are you referring to Mitchum’s anti-Semitism?
Hi Mark, if I can give my two-cents worth here, I don’t think there is strong evidence that Mitchum was anti-semetic. The main reason why one might think this is the case is due to an interview he gave where he did make some unfortunate remarks but later explained that he was acting out the character he played in the movie he was starring in at the time, The Championship Season. He apologized for the misunderstanding indicating that this kind of bigotry was completely foreign to his principles. Whatever the case, as he got older, he did have a tendency to get drunk and shout off nasty remarks, but who knows whether he really believed them. I think the misbehavior which probably helped his career had nothing to do with this interview, but his conviction for possession of marijuana in the late 1940s. It seems his films started to do better at the box office afterwards, but hey, this could just have been a coincidence. Flynn of course is another story, but I rather not go there.
Hey PhilHoF17…..good information on Mitchum. If in a lifetime of movies, interviews and other encounters…there is only one comment….I think we can get behind Mitchum’s explanation of those comments.
Hey Mark….I was referring to his pot issue. Which actually sent him to prison for 43 days. At the time….some studio heads thought he career was doomed….but that was far from the truth.
I know Mitchum told Arabs in London that the Jewish director Michael Winner was a Mossad agent when they were filming “The Big Sleep” in 1977.
Hey Mark…..Mitchum’s comment did not get much traction back then….I could only imagine how social media today would react to something like that.
Hello, the sun is shining today. It is September 3rd, 2017. I was checking out my response before and it was March 15, 2015. LONG TIME AGO. I have seen about 98% of his movies. It was sad that he had a bad ending. He was a very good actor and gave good performances in his movies.
It took time to go back to the comments made as you had a good response. INTERESTING SO THANKS ONCE AGAIN.
Hey BERN1960….I actually bet your original comment was even older…..this Flynn page was one of the first ones we moved to the website…so the comments are from HubPages..which would mean they are from 2011. I agree he had a very sad and bad ending…but his legacy lives on. Glad you returned for a repeat reading of this page. It is grealy appreciated.
1 20 years ago there was serious speculation that during the Second World War Errol had Nazi sympathies and was a spy for the 3rd Reich. I haven’t a clue what his political leanings were and it hardly matters now but I never envisaged him sober enough to be an effective spy for anybody. However I’m sure that he would have been capable of looking after the bevies of ‘Bond girls’ that according to the movies was in the job description of a top spy! I think that I mentioned before that Errol’s father was a lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast where I live.
2 VIDEO (1) Flynn was regarded by many as the successor to Douglas Fairbanks Senior as the great cinema swashbuckler and I see you have included 6 from that genre with his 3 classics Sea Hawk. Robin Hood and Captain Blood rightly in your Top 5 (2) Bruce and you agree on only those 3 of the Top 5 but in slightly different order. (3) a super colour still from Captain Blood and a stunning solo final one of Flynn in swordplay. Virginia City was also a cracker (4) too many wonderful poster reproductions to list but I’ll single out San Antonio, again Virginia City, and the two Bette Davis ones The Sisters and – absolutely fabulous – Elizabeth and Essex (5) I see Freddy Mac entered the scene once again in Dive Bomber this time! (6) I was pleased to see that The Sun Also Rises*** was given a respectable 6.9 and ranked 15 as it was one of the few films that Flynn ever got rave notices for and also it teamed him with Ty Power (7) Errol made a fair number of westerns which you’ve faithfully represented in your photo play and you have included Rocky Mountain which teamed him with his wife Patrice Wymore [poor girl] (8) your video very faithfully illustrates Errol made a large number of important stand-alone movies so 9.4/10
***From a Hemmingway novel Fiesta. He walked out in disgust after 25 minis at film premier
Seems Bruce agrees with him but I’m on your side!
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, rating, observation, trivia and taking my side, much appreciated. 🙂
I didn’t know Flynn felt that way about The Sun Also Rises, like you say it got him some good notices. Sadly Flynn and Power didn’t live to see the new decade. Flynn died aged 50 and Power was 44.
A whole spate of great Hollywood actors died in the late 50s to late 60s, moviegoers at the time must have been bewildered and in constant remorse – Bogart, Power, Flynn, Cooper, Gable, Monroe, Ladd, Tracy, Taylor, Garland… gone but never forgotten.
And I should add that nearly all died before their time, I think Tracy was the oldest of that group?
Hey Steve…you are correct. Tracy was indeed the oldest.
In the late 1950s/early Sixties after one of them died the regular cliche in the press was “The late great——” Apologies if my last post confused you. Hemmingway walked out – not Flynn
Errol sat thru 3 continuous performances !.
Tracy was the oldest and Power at 44 was the youngest of the men.
Hey….you are right Tracy was the oldest….reaching the age of 67.
Good stuff Steve.
Hey Bob…..good comment…..so in your corner it is you and Steve and in my corner it is me and Hemingway….I like my chances…lol. I read that Flynn was considered for a possible Oscar nomination for that movie…and I agree he is fun to watch in that one….but the rest of the movie is hard to watch…and even harder to enjoy….I think it has aged horribly….but I respect you and Steve’s opinion….even if I do not agree with it.
Flynn was left-wing, he admitted that in his autobiography. Many people on the left did initially support the Axis Powers due to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Hey Mark….thanks for the information on Flynn and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Everybody we have pages on, seems to have some skeltons….which is why we generally avoid the personal lives in our pages. Good stuff.
Flynn had it all, he could do the lot , No one comes near him end of story.!!!
Hey Tom Perry….glad a Errol Flynn fan found this page. Over the years this page has been updated, tweaked and hopefully improved and improved….and has become one of our most popular pages.