Truth be told, I had planned to watch a different Errol Flynn movie. On the two movie disk I ordered online that contained the truly horrible King's Rhapsody, it also has Lilacs In The Spring, yet another Herbert Wilcox/Anna Neagle disaster from Errol's lowest period. Frankly, I couldn't stomache watching two Wilcox movies back-to-back. King's Rhapsody was so bad, I was afraid that watching another immediately after would put me off the entire Errol film quest thingee.
Fortunately, I discovered that some kind soul had posted Errol's last good movie - and to some purists the last work to really be considered part of his filmography - on YouTube - 1958's The Roots of Heaven. Filmed over six months in Chad, the backstory of the movie is legendary. Director John Huston hated the end product, and considered it one of his least successful films. Filming it was a nightmare, with every member of the cast and crew falling ill in the 130 degree temperatures and poor sanitary conditions. Flynn was reportedly hospitalized several times with reoccurances of malaria that he originally picked up as a young man in New Guinea, but was one of the few members of the cast who did not come down with dysentery, largely due to the large cache of alcohol he carried with him (more on that below).
The Roots of Heaven was originally supposed to star William Holden, with Errol as second bill. Flynn took the role because he never done a film with Holden, and admired his work as an actor. Unfortunately, Holden's studio forced a contractual issue on him, and he was forced to drop out of the project. Lacking a leading man, Darryl F. Zanuck, the producer, found Trevor Howard -a fine actor, but not a leading man with pull like Holden. So Howard, the actual leading man in the film, was dropped to third or fourth in billing, and Errol, who has a decent supporting role in the film, got top billing (which he didn't seek or request). But Errol did give a solid performance. Despite the harsh filming environment, he looked much healthier than many of his earlier 1950s movies. Perhaps the harsh isolation of Chad did him some good. As with most of his later movies, he plays an alcoholic. OK, typecast. But a really solid acting job, and an indication of what might have been if he had lived longer, and developed into a really solid character actor with solid roles to play. Trevor Howard does a fine job playing, well, Trevor Howard (think Von Ryan's Express with elephants) and Juliette Greco is, well, gorgeous.
Whomever posted The Roots of Heaven on YouTube did a great job. Broken into 12 ten minute segements, they can be teed up to run sequentially. Picture quality is excellent. And, frankly, saved me some bucks from having to order the DVD online.
Oh, the dysentery/alcohol thing. Many think that's a myth. It's not. When I was in Nepal (another unsanitary Third World craphole) doing some work at the US Embassy there, I was advised upon arrival by the Marine Guards that they had a standing practice to, every morning, drink a shot of whiskey. They did the same in the evening. Why? Because the hard liquor killed whatever bugs might be in their digestive systems, and warded off the runs. To pass a day without such a regimen, I was told, was to invite a few days of living within sprinting distance of a commode. Since I has a full bottle of Cipro, I didn't feel I needed the whiskey treatment (but I can't imagine taking Cipro for an entire year - that crap would kill you). Anyway, a shot a day keeps the runs away? Apparently it did for Errol in 1958.
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