Monday, July 5, 2010

Flynnfest #46 - The Adventures of Captain Fabian



La Taverne de N.O. is the French title of this French-American production filmed in Europe in 1951, during Errol's escape-to-Europe phase. It's considered by many to be one of Flynn's worst films (Cuban Rebel Girls notwithstanding). It is pretty bad. More than bad, it's just incredibly weird. Filled with incredibly unsympathetic main characters (leading lady Micheline Prelle plays, well, a psychopath), including Errol's soulless Captain Fabian, a properly despicable bad guy in Vincent Price (who turns out to be not so bad, considering how immoral the rest of the main characters are, and a truly nuts Agnes Moorehead in quasi-blackface - this movie had it all, accented by a truly horrible soundtrack with weird instrumental noise more akin to horror flicks. The credit list Errol as the story writer - I can only hope that was an affectation and not reality. It's not an unwatchable movie, as it is just weird enough to be strangely compelling.

Errol, by the way, looks a bit worn around the edges, but not too bad. Perhaps the air in the south of France was agreeing with him. Micheline Presle only made a few English-language movies, none of much note (American Guerrillas in the Philippines?), before divorcing Flynn's business partner, director, and producer on Captain Fabian William Marshall in 1954. After that, she moved back to Paris and has been a feature in French cinema for over 50 years.

No comments:

Post a Comment