The set of The Adventures of Don Juan 1948.


 Errol Flynn gets a visit form his then wife, Nora Eddington, son Sean and daughter Deirdre. Sean’s mother was Lily Damita. Errol is wearing a bandana because of his own long hair. He usually wore a wig which was easier to manage. The bandana kept his long hair from dancing around in the action sequences.


The movie was very important for Errol. Ten years earlier he had been one of Warner Brothers biggest stars with several classics, The Adventures Of Robin Hood, Sea Hawk, They Died With Their Boots On etc. Then there had been his statutory rape case which hurt his reputation. Changing tastes hurt his box office with lessening budgets failing to find large audiences. Silver River 1948 was a poor comparison to Virginia City 1940.


Then around 1947 Warners re-released his swashbucklers and thy did fantastic business. The powers that be decided to give him one more chance with this property that had been there for him anyway. They put in the budget, great costumes and great music. It didn’t really work.


Although only 38, years of hard living had taken their toll and he looked tired. The old spark was gone and, to me, he was mostly going through the motions. It’s not a movie I liked. Ill health and drinking on set hurt production. The movie only did so-so business on release in the United States. It was huge in Europe though. Still suffering the after effects of the war they were grateful for this splash of escapist colour and it was one of the top movies of the year in France. Unfortunately because of things like tax Warners didn’t see a great deal of these profits.



Errol was finished as a top star at Warners and they put him in low budget programmers that did little for his ego or box office and he continued to physically deteriorate.


He died just 11 years later and the coroner said he had the ‘body of an old man.’

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