The Seahawk (1940)

Another offering for Flynn Week.

It was said, at one time, that if Bette Davis was the queen of Warner Brothers, Errol Flynn was the king. And a king, too, with a lineage that was astounding, to say the least. The Tasmanian-born Flynn spent a few years as a young man in Papua New Guinea holding down jobs as varied (and in some cases illegal) as diamond smuggler, slave recruiter, gold prospector, sheep castrator, and manager of tobacco and coconut plantations, before washing up in the big bad world of cinema. Flynn’s first role was as his own ancestor, Fletcher Christian, a mutineer on the HMS Bounty; two years later, opposite Olivia de Havilland (who was a very distant relative of his), Flynn acted as the pirate Captain Blood—and the king of swashbucklers had arrived.

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The Mark of Zorro (1940)

If there’s one film that’s quintessential Tyrone Power, it’s this one. The Mark of Zorro changed Tyrone Power from being just a pretty face to being a pretty face who could also do some very fancy stunts with a sword in hand. It made him a swashbuckling star, a stereotype that was to stick with him for a while, even though he tried to shake it off with roles like that in Nightmare Alley.
And what a film. What a rollicking, enjoyable, delightful film! I love every bit of it, and have been looking forward to sharing the joy with everybody ever since I first saw it, a few months back. So, without more ado, here goes.

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