Errol Flynn: The Life and Career (Hardcover)

Twenty years after Flynn's death in 1959 a scurrilous, inaccurate, and thoroughly vicious biography (Charles Higham's ERROL FLYNN: THE UNTOLD STORY) depicted Flynn as a cold, heartless monster given over to selfishness and perversity, a man lacking all human decency and scruples. As a result Flynn's reputation was left in tatters. Nearly a quarter of a century later McNulty has come along with a thoughtful and satisfying book that goes a great distance toward correcting the injustice. Along the way he also provides a window into three of the most crucial decades of the twentieth century.

The research that went into the making of this book is impressive, to say the least. The text is packed with information. The back portion is almost as useful to a study of the subject as what comes before. This includes two appendices. The first, entitled "Remembrances," records insights from a wide variety of people, including David Niven, Patric Knowles, John Huston, Kirk Douglas, Veronica Lake, Robert Stack, and Sheldon Leonard. The second appendix is an extensive filmography which takes into account all of Flynn's film, stage, and television work. The documentation of the book is supported by hundreds of footnotes. A long and comprehensive index likewise increases the value of the book enormously.

It is especially encouraging to note the recent trend in Hollywood biographies to adopt a more scholarly approach rather than the older tabloid style. (See, for instance, Arthur Lennig's STROHEIM, Richard Schickel's D. W. GRIFFITH and CLINT EASTWOOD: A BIOGRAPHY, or Gary Giddins' BING CROSBY: A POCKETFUL OF DREAMS). Books about great film personalities are suddenly looking more like David McCullough's JOHN ADAMS than Kitty Kelly's HIS WAY. McNulty's book is additional evidence of this trend. The text is meticulously written and just as meticulously documented. The style throughout is a joy to read.

The loving way in which McNulty writes of Flynn reflects the "Hamlet principle" - that if certain figures are sufficiently adored by the public, their foibles will be forgiven accordingly. Flynn's faults are somehow woven into McNulty's overall portrait without fatally detracting from the positive legacy Flynn left, and this ability is clearly born of years of deep study and understanding on McNulty's part.

Another of the book's most valuable sections is the bibliography and its meticulous cataloguing of sources, published and unpublished, which provides the reader with a sense of the richness of Flynn's literary output. These include numerous unpublished letters of Flynn to which McNulty was privy, and which he has put to extraordinary use throughout the book.

Flynn was often an infuriatingly complex man, deeply troubled throughout much of his life. He was a labyrinth of false leads and an endless set of contradictions. Rather than attempting to force Flynn into a neat, coherent mold that does away with the tensions and paradoxes inherent in his character, McNulty simply allows the contradictions to stand, preferring that the reader interpret them as he or she may. One comes away from the book with the feeling that Flynn was as big a puzzle to himself as to everyone else.

In the end what is perhaps most compelling and admirable about McNulty's treatment is the way he has handled his sources. There is an unimpeachable sense of probity here. No tampering with the evidence, no devious manipulation of the primary information is to be found; if any distortion exists, it will be more a question of selection and emphasis placed upon various sources and incidents in Flynn's life, and this will be the result of personal emotions and highly subjective analysis.

Thomas McNulty has, in short, gifted the world with an encyclopedic account that provides the first fully documented, carefully composed, and ultimately sympathetic reflection on Flynn's life and work - yet without ever being uncritical, mawkish, or sentimental. The Flynn who emerges from these pages is a compelling, flesh and blood figure, warts and all, whose tragedy was that he attempted to fly too close to the sun. He was a much better actor than he thought he was, and a much less wicked man that he liked to portray himself in public. Despite the sadness inherent in his life, however, this Flynn biography is no "downer" - as was true two years ago when Jeffrey Meyers (INHERITED RISK) tried unsuccessfully to use Flynn to create a father-son "Greek tragedy." For once the reader comes away with a positive, balanced, and even grateful feeling toward the subject.

Few film star biographies will be worth laying out what the publisher is asking for it ($65); this one is an exception. The evident care and love that went into it will more than repay the reader, who will come back to it again and again in the countless hours of future delight which lie ahead.