Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14687 in DVD
• Brand: WARNER HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2007-03-27
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English, German, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 5
• Dimensions: .95 pounds

Studio description
Includes The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Gentleman Jim (1942), The Adventures of Don Juan (1948), The Dawn Patrol (1938), and Dive Bomber (1941).

Amazon.com
The best-known of Errol Flynn's movies are already out there on DVD, so surely there can't be much left over to keep the second volume of the Errol Flynn Signature Collection from being an anticlimax. Except it's not. The new boxed set includes a splendid historical adventure, two aviation movies impressive in different ways, and a late swashbuckler that operates as a droll gloss on the star's persona. Plus (wait for it...) it also contains the best movie Errol Flynn ever made, and very likely his best performance as well.

Let's take that last one first. Raoul Walsh's Gentleman Jim (1942) is a great, boisterous gift box of a movie, a high-spirited biopic of late-19th-century prizefighter James J. Corbett. The setting is San Francisco in the Gay '90s, with Flynn/Corbett starting out as a brash, egotistical bank teller fast with his mouth and light on his feet. Given a chance to crash high society, he becomes a pugilist for the amusement of the nabobs, then sets out on a boxing career that will bring him glove-to-glove with the Great John L. ... Sullivan, that is, and portrayed with Walshian gusto by Ward Bond. Gentleman Jim is fragrant with period atmosphere, exhilarating in its feeling for space and back-slapping human contact, and so big-hearted and exuberant that it finally invites the audience right into the film. Alexis Smith--as a socialite who ribs Corbett mercilessly--and Flynn conduct a strikingly egalitarian mating duel. The supporting cast includes Jack Carson, Alan Hale, and the epically grumpy William Frawley, and the whirlwind montages are by future director Don Siegel. This is great fun--and a masterpiece to boot.

The adventure movie is The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Flynn's second star vehicle in Hollywood. A step up in scale and gloss from Captain Blood, this Michael Curtiz picture is historical poppycock but thrilling spectacle, with exotic doings in India and Asia Minor building to the horrendous siege of Chukoti, then a lateral move to the Crimea for the big Tennyson finish every perennial schoolboy in the audience has been waiting for. The Flynn of this swashbuckler-one-step-removed isn't the buoyant and boyish fellow we expect; he even comes in second to fellow Bengal Lancer (and dull brother) Patric Knowles for the heart of Olivia De Havilland. But he wears nobility well, and there's genuine tenderness in his performance. The camerawork and editing of the Charge will lift your heart rate, and the large supporting cast includes Donald Crisp, Nigel Bruce, Spring Byington, C. Henry Gordon, and Flynn pal David Niven.

Niven and Flynn are together again in The Dawn Patrol (1938), a memorable WWI tale of British airmen flying perilous missions in flimsy planes, and the flight commanders who have to send them out to do it. Basil Rathbone (in a rare departure from villainy in a Flynn movie) plays the tortured commandant whom hotshot Flynn will be obliged to succeed. Although this is the Dawn Patrol most people know, it's actually the remake of a 1930 Howard Hawks classic. The original has a starker feel (inseparable from its early-talkie creakiness), as if its airbase were at the edge of the known world. The more up-to-date Flynn version, directed by Edmund Goulding, is smoother entertainment, with a stronger supporting cast--but all the flying footage is from Hawks's movie.

The other aviation drama is Dive Bomber (1941), a big hit just before America's entry into WWII. Flynn plays it more sober than usual (no pun intended) as a Navy flight surgeon helping to lick the challenge of high-altitude sickness. There's no good reason for the movie to last 132 minutes, and both the macho griping of aviator Fred MacMurray and the garish treatment of the peripheral females (including Alexis Smith in her first featured role) get tiresome. But these are worth enduring for the breathtaking flight scenes in vivid Technicolor--which looks every bit as great as it must have in 1941. Director Michael Curtiz, in what would be his last film with Flynn, even sets up the ground scenes to include low-altitude flyovers.

The Adventures of Don Juan (1948), made near the end of Flynn's Warner years, is a footnote to the star's swashbuckling legacy and a not-very-inside joke on his reputation as real-life Don Juan; the picture is at least as interested in eliciting chuckles as serving up thrills. Director Vincent Sherman lacked the brio of Curtiz and the gusto of Walsh, but he ably steers the actor past self-parody to a reasonably graceful performance. Again, the real excitement is the ultra-radiant Technicolor--a perhaps inadvertent result of veteran film noir cameraman Woody Bredell lighting the movie as though he were still working that black-and-white territory. Viveca Lindfors supplies urbane love interest as the Queen of Spain, and Robert Douglas stands in for Basil Rathbone as villain-in-chief.

Consistent with previous Warner practice, all but one of the features in Volume 2 come packaged with a "Warner Night at the Movies" set of shorts: cartoons, comedy shorts, trailers for contemporaneous WB movies, and sometimes newsreels. The disc of Gentleman Jim also includes an audio-only bonus, a radio reenactment featuring Flynn and costars Alexis Smith and Ward Bond. Probably because of its two-hour-plus running time, Dive Bomber is accompanied only by its trailer and a brief documentary, in which historian Rudy Behlmer shares a choice anecdote about Mike Curtiz attempting to direct airplanes. Unfortunately, of Flynn and his various directors, only Vincent Sherman was still available to do a commentary track (on Adventures of Don Juan, which also includes Behlmer commentary); Sherman passed away in 2006 at the age of 99. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews

ERROL FLYNN RETURNS IN A DAZZLING BOXED SET..BRAVO!
The immortals of the screen's golden era transcend time because each of the true greats was an orginal. Unique. Incomparable. Gable, Garland, Garbo, Davis, Bogart, Cagney, John Wayne, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy...no one was like them before, or ever will be again. The same can surely be said about the wonderful Errol Flynn.

Warner Bros. has been quite generous in delivering us many Flynn titles in recent years, and there are dozens to go! This latest set will not dissapoint his fans, with 5 entertaining, classic vehicles, assembled in an impressive newly designed sleeve that takes the WB Signature Collection series to a higher plane of elegance and magnetism.

Every film here is top-drawer, but my particular favorite has to be CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. An undeniable classic which has never looked so good. All the transfers here are the best I've ever seen, and the vintage extras Warner has included are like the cherry on top of the sundae.

I'm sure WB has another 2 or 3 Flynn sets waiting in the wings...and why not. He made several dozen films for the studio, and only a handful don't classify as timeless entertainment.

Second Flynn Collection A MUST for Flynn Fans!
While every Errol Flynn fan has individual titles they will champion as 'Essential' Flynn, "The Errol Flynn Signature Collection, Vol. 2", combined with the first volume, offers a pretty complete collection of the premier screen cavalier's most memorable screen appearances...and two of the films in this collection ("The Charge of the Light Brigade" and "The Adventures of Don Juan"), are absolute MUSTS!

"The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1936): Flynn's follow-up to "Captain Blood" is a tour-de-force of adventure, romance, and spectacle, climaxing in, arguably, the greatest (and bloodiest) cavalry charge in screen history! More Rudyard Kipling than Tennyson, most of the story occurs in India, with noble Flynn saving the life of a genocide-minded tyrant, losing Olivia de Havilland (for once!) to future 'Will Scarlet' Patric Knowles, and chumming with doomed best friend (both on and off screen), David Niven. Eventually the action moves to the Crimea, and the infamous Charge, an astonishing spectacle that, sadly, cost the lives of at least one stunt man, and hundreds of horses (Flynn, himself, would be so distraught by the carnage that he helped establish the present standards against animal cruelty).

Unforgettable!

"The Adventures of Don Juan" (1948): Warner's attempt to resuscitate Flynn's sagging career failed, but the film is an absolutely enchanting, tongue-in-cheek swashbuckler many consider his last 'great' film! Looking a bit worn (he fell off the wagon early in the production, which ended up taking nearly a year to complete), Flynn is the immortal roué, too often caught during trysts (a familiar real-life dilemma for Flynn!). Returned to Spain in disgrace, accompanied by loyal Alan Hale (in the last of his 12 films with Errol), he eventually wins the heart of the Queen, foils a plot to overthrow the monarchy, and fights a furious duel with villain Robert Douglas, all to one of the GREATEST of Max Steiner's scores!

A real TREAT!

Two other films of the collection are also great Flynn; "The Dawn Patrol" (1938) re-teams Flynn with David Niven and Basil Rathbone (a VERY sympathetic 'villain', this time!), in one of the BEST WWI dramas, of burnt-out fliers pushed to their limits; "Gentleman Jim" (1942), one of Flynn's own personal favorites, is a funny, light-hearted biopic of boxer James J. Corbett, father of 'modern' boxing, with fabulous turns by Alan Hale (as Flynn's FATHER!), and Ward Bond (unforgettable as the aging John L. Sullivan).

The only (slight) disappointment is "Dive Bomber" (1941), in the collection, I suspect, because it was filmed in color! A dated tale of the Navy's research into the effects of high altitude flying on pilots, the film boasts a first-rate cast (including Fred MacMurray and Ralph Bellamy), and Flynn at his most handsome, but it lacks the charm and excitement of the other titles...Still, this isn't a bad film!

Happily, Flynn is BACK...and with his five WWII-themed films still to be released, perhaps a Flynn 'War' collection will be next!

BRAVO WB and Errol Flynn! possibly better than vol. 1!!!
Okay...I just bounced around this set and can tell everyone that the transfers are typically excellent for Warner Bros (the absolute BEST studio at handling classic titles!)...the extras are plentiful and just too much fun. The Warner Bros Night at the movies concept is really terrific and they seem to work hard to dig up material from the day that really add to the experience and place the films in historical context.
and speaking of the films...WOW! Its nice to see Errol out of the green tights and in a suit and tie. There isn't a clunker in the group...Charge of the light brigade is a stone cold classic and another in a long series of pairings with Ms DeHavilland, Dawn Patrol features David Niven (also co-starring in Charge)...Dive Bomber is an early Technicolor triumph and perhaps the jewel of the collection is Gentleman Jim (reportedly Flynn's favorite of his films). What Flynn set would be complete however without a swashbuckler and Adventures of Don Juan ...delivers the goods with a brilliant technicolor transfer ...and commentary by the late great director Vincent Sherman!!

This is a terrific package at a ridiculous price...I've spent this much for 2 tickets for a current movie and this is a collection I will treasure. Thanks WB! Please let 2008 bring volume 3!!