Orson Welles' 1948 strange but classic film noir The Lady From Shanghai is ordinarily not listed in Flynn's filmography, but more often as a an obscure trivia item. Flynn lent his yatch, the Zaca, to Welles for the film. In fact, the yatch gets a lot of screen time.It's also said that Flynn helped captain the yatch (off screen) during filming, and shot much of the aerial footage of the cruising vessel from an airplane. That may or may not be true. It certainly sounds more like legend.
It's also said that Flynn has an incognito scene in the background as a cantina customer in Acapulco. That may well be true. However, I slo-mo'd over all the possible cantina scenes in the movie. There are four possible male figures in the background of various scenes with cantina backgrounds, but they are so far away and out of focus it would be impossible, even with the most advanced digital imaging, to definitively say which one of them, if any, might be Errol. But one of them probably is, as Flynn liked a good joke, and Welles was well known for adding those types of touches to his films.
If nothing else, Errol's pet dachschund gets some time on the screen.
The yatch Zaca was one of the big loves of Flynn's life. Broke and at the end of his tether, he was in Canada to try to sell it when he died. It's said the yatch fell into disrepair, was overhauled to it's original beauty, and is now on the seas in southern Europe somewhere.
Oh, I picked up this DVD for only a couple of bucks at a Blockbuster in Des Moines having a 'Going Out of Business" Sale. Bad news for Blockbuster. Good news for me. And Hulu.com, I guess. Well, better for me, I suppose. I've discovered that Des Moines cable companies don't run TCM. I'm a dead man. They have some crappy, 10th rate poser channel called This.TV, but no classic movie channel. Tonight the only decent movie on is Dirty Harry - in Spanish on Univision. It's gonna be a long tour in Des Moines.
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