Time for another film connections post, in which I link films and cinema personalities together and tell a few interesting stories along the way. This week, I hope to connect Douglas Fairbanks to Marlon Brando — and maybe even back again.
During Hollywood’s silent‑film era, Douglas Fairbanks was arguably its greatest star. In 1922 he released his lavish version of Robin Hood, the first film ever to have a Hollywood premiere, held at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre. The production featured enormous sets, including a castle and an entire town built at Fairbanks’ studio on Santa Monica Boulevard, expanded on screen with hanging models and matte paintings.
Fairbanks, who performed many of his own stunts, famously rode down a huge curtain at Nottingham Castle, made slightly easier by a concealed slide. The film was directed by Allan Dwan, one of early cinema’s great pioneers.
Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Chaplin and DW Griffiths who together created United Artists.
Among the cast was Alan Hale as Little John, a role he reprised years later in the 1938 Technicolor version starring Errol Flynn.
Flynn’s The Adventures of Robin Hood featured Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian and Basil Rathbone as Guy of Gisborne, who serves as the film’s main villain. The Sheriff of Nottingham, the traditional arch enemy of Robin is portrayed in this film as more of a comic figure. Much of the film was shot in California’s Bidwell Park, standing in for Sherwood Forest, with additional scenes filmed at the Warner Ranch in Calabasas.
The film began under director William Keighley, but producer Hal B. Wallis later brought in Michael Curtiz, who had previously made several films with Flynn, including Captain Blood, the film that made Flynn a star.
The highlight of The Adventures of Robin Hood is the climactic duel between Robin and Sir Guy, culminating in the famous moment when their shadows dance along the castle walls.
Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn later admitted they were in love during filming, but Olivia declined to pursue a relationship as Flynn was married to actress Lili Damita. Olivia’s relationship with her sister Joan Fontaine was far less affectionate. Their childhood rivalry carried on into adulthood: when Joan won an Oscar for Suspicion, she rejected Olivia’s congratulations, and when Olivia later won her own Oscar, she returned the favour. They reconciled in later years, only to fall out again over their mother’s medical treatment.
My favourite of Joan’s films, and perhaps her most well‑known, is Rebecca, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Released in 1940, Rebecca was Hitchcock’s first Hollywood film. In Monte Carlo, a shy young woman (played by Fontaine) meets the English gentleman Maxim de Winter and believes he is about to jump off a cliff. They later fall in love and marry, but the new Mrs de Winter (her name is never revealed) feels overshadowed by Maxim’s late wife, Rebecca. Olivier apparently wanted his own wife, Vivien Leigh, for the role, but Hitchcock chose Fontaine.
In 1956 Laurence Olivier announced he would direct a film version of Terence Rattigan’s The Sleeping Prince, retitled The Prince and the Showgirl. That same year Marilyn Monroe, newly married to Arthur Miller, arrived in England to make the film. Her production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, had purchased the rights to Rattigan’s play, and she and Olivier would co‑produce.
Just as in Rebecca, Olivier wanted Vivien Leigh for Marilyn’s part, and tensions arose early. Marilyn looked to her acting coach, Paula Strasberg, after every take rather than to Olivier. He banned Strasberg from the set but soon had to readmit her. Marilyn was nervous and frequently late while Olivier and the rest of the cast were punctual. It was not a smooth shoot.
The fundamental clash was their acting styles. Olivier was classically trained and dismissive of the Method, the technique Marilyn had embraced. Yet in the finished film which I watched recently, Marilyn comes across far better than Olivier.
Marilyn studied the Method at the Actors Studio in New York under Lee Strasberg. The technique, rooted in the work of Konstantin Stanislavski, encourages actors to draw on their own emotional experiences to inhabit their characters fully.
Another famous Method actor (perhaps the most famous Method actor ever) was James Dean. His breakthrough came in 1955 with East of Eden, directed by Elia Kazan. Dean had also studied at the Actors Studio and, after theatre work and television roles, was cast in East of Eden while performing in the play See the Jaguar.
Kazan had previously directed Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront. Streetcar, based on Tennessee Williams’ play, was set in the Deep South. Kazan had directed the Broadway production and used the same cast for the film, with one exception: Vivien Leigh, who had played Blanche DuBois in the London stage version, was brought in for the film because of her star status.
In the story, Blanche, a former Southern belle, moves in with her sister Stella and Stella’s husband, Stanley Kowalski, after losing her home to creditors. Blanche finds Stanley loud and rough, and at one point he explodes in a drunken rage. Blanche and Stella hide from him, only for Stella to return to Stanley’s arms after his famous calls of “Stella!”
Brando was one of the great screen actors, but like Richard Burton, he sometimes questioned whether acting was a suitable profession for a man. Burton nevertheless gave his all to every role, knew his lines, and delivered superb performances. Brando, especially later in life, often did not. He refused to learn his lines and relied on “idiot boards” placed just out of shot.
When The Godfather was being cast, Warner Bros. refused to consider Brando, viewing him as too difficult. Director Francis Ford Coppola, however, was determined to have him as Don Corleone. The studio eventually agreed, but only if Brando accepted a reduced salary, posted a financial bond against potential misbehaviour, and completed a screen test.
Coppola filmed the test at Brando’s Mulholland Drive home. In the footage, which can be found online, Brando stuffed his cheeks with cotton wool, slicked back his hair, and muttered vague Italian‑sounding phrases. The studio was impressed, and Brando was cast.
Filming took place in and around New York in 1971, and the film was released in 1972. Brando won the Oscar for Best Actor but boycotted the ceremony, sending Sacheen Littlefeather to decline the award on behalf of Native Americans.
Earlier I wondered whether I could link back from Brando to Fairbanks. Here’s the admittedly thin connection.
In 1967 Brando starred with Sophia Loren in A Countess from Hong Kong, a romantic comedy written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. The film was a box‑office failure and turned out to be Chaplin’s last.
Chaplin had been heavily criticised after World War II for supposed communist leanings, and in 1952, when he left for a visit to England, the US Attorney General declined to renew his re‑entry permit. Chaplin did not appeal. Instead, he sent his new wife, Oona, to settle his affairs and moved permanently to Switzerland.
In 1972 Chaplin was invited back to Hollywood to receive a special Oscar for his contribution to cinema. It was an emotional return, and he was visibly moved as he accepted the award.
In the film Chaplin, directed by Richard Attenborough, we see Chaplin returning to the USA and taking a sentimental drive past his old studio lot, then the headquarters of A&M Records.
As he drove through Hollywood, I’m sure Chaplin might have thought for a moment about his best friend, Douglas Fairbanks, his partner in United Artists who, back in 1922, made his memorable version of the Robin Hood story.
The late seventies and early eighties were the heyday of the TV ‘mini series’. What is a mini series I hear you asking? Well, they were short TV series with only a few episodes. You rarely hear the name ‘mini series’ these days but they are still about. I mentioned some time ago about the series ‘
I’m going to kick off with the film Young Winston. I’m a great fan of Winston Churchill and I’m not amused about current plans to remove him from UK banknotes, but getting back to the film, Young Winston is a wonderful dramatisation of Churchill’s own book, 
I’ve always liked this final sequence but when I bought my VHS copy back in the 1980s the scene was omitted. Likewise, every time in recent years, since I first watched the film on television, this scene has always been removed. I’d love to know why. Perhaps the producers thought the film too long or perhaps preferred the new ending in which Winston talks briefly about his marriage and living ‘happily ever after’. After a search on the internet, I came across a post which claimed that Carl Foreman, who wrote and produced the film, found that US audiences occasioned so little reaction to the scene that he promptly had it cut. What reaction was he expecting to see I wonder?
I’m not sure what counts as a heatwave in other countries but here in the UK it seems to be a run of a few hot days. The recent heatwave lasted for around two weeks and during that time perhaps only five days were really extraordinarily hot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking it, I like the warm weather even though we’re not really equipped to deal with it here in England.
For Christmas the previous year my mother had given my brother and me a shared present. It was a portable stereo record player. At the time neither myself nor my brother were that interested in the pop charts. The first album I bought was a collection of TV theme tunes by composer John Barry. Barry wrote a number of famous tunes for both TV and the cinema. He is probably best remembered for a tune he didn’t write, the James Bond theme tune. There was actually quite a controversy over the authorship of the tune. Monty Norman is credited as the writer of the music although it was John Barry’s jazz arrangement of the theme that most people are familiar with.
The title track from the album is the theme from The Persuaders, a TV show starring future James Bond, Roger Moore and Tony Curtis. The pair played Lord Brett Sinclair and US businessman Danny Wilde who are recruited by a retired judge to fight crime. Tony Curtis drove my favourite car of all time in the series, a Ferrari Dino 246 GT. Price tag today, anything between £500,000 to a million.
MASH was a series based on a book and film about US army surgeons in Korea who worked in a mobile army hospital unit. Alan Alda played the wisecracking Hawkeye Pierce and the series ran for many years combining humour and drama in a most impressive way. It perhaps ran a few years longer than it should have done and the later episodes were not as good as the earlier ones, at least in my opinion.
I’ve always rather liked Kenneth Williams, the slightly over the top star of many a Carry On film as well as many radio comedy shows, however it did feel rather odd reading his private thoughts through his diary, although sometimes it was hard to keep track of what was happening. In a lot of the diary entries Kenneth refers to people by their initials rather than their name. The habit of using initials can be rather annoying as the editor will mention in one of the many footnotes that SB for instance refers to his friend and fellow performer Stanley Baxter. Later on, SB will turn up again and I find myself flipping back through the footnotes because I have forgotten who SB was.
Albert Speer was Hitler’s armaments minister and favoured architect and this book is made up of diary entries he had secretly smuggled out of Spandau prison where he was incarcerated for 20 years after the Second World War. Speer admits he was one of those people seduced by the power of Hitler’s personality. Looking back at Hitler today in grainy old black and white films, it is hard to understand how this strange and dour man who ranted and raved while speech making could seduce anyone, however many have testified to the startling power of his personality. I remember watching that interesting BBC documentary ‘The Nazis: A warning from History’. In one segment various people were interviewed who declared their youthful love for Hitler; a young girl who looked into his eyes and saw goodness or an old man who testified he had once seen the great side of Hitler. Sadly Hitler let them down and many more like them. Speer maintained that he knew nothing of concentration camps and the final solution but author Gitta Sereny claimed in her book Speer: His battle with Truth that Speer knew more than he let on.
This is the first of Michael Palin’s diaries and it’s been pretty interesting, especially being a fan of the TV show Monty Python. Anyway, Palin started his diaries soon after packing in smoking. Perhaps it was a way of helping get over his tobacco addiction, or perhaps not. The diaries also begin just as Monty Python, the comedy TV show, was starting and Palin mentions this in his introduction, his aim not to record the start of the ground breaking comedy but more to record things about his new family, his wife having recently given birth to their first child.
My diaries are definitely not for publishing. Looking back at them I notice that whenever something interesting has happened to me I have never written about it at the time, it has always been some time later when I have set down my feelings about the incident, whatever it may have been. The diary may be a confessional for some people but for me, as I said earlier, I started writing a diary as a way of making myself write when I couldn’t think of anything else to write about. In the early 2000’s I started writing a diary on my laptop, only to lose all my recollections from 2005 to 2006 when the file somehow became corrupted and refused to open. I was quite excited when the latest version of Microsoft Word came out because it gives you the option to repair a damaged file. Alas, that option would not work on my diary file. Then of course there are my big boxes of pre-2000 diaries. What shall I do with this lot I wonder? Will they add something to social history or grace the rubbish tip when I’m gone?
The first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about spies and espionage is probably James Bond, perhaps not the version of Bond as written by Ian Fleming but more the version given to us by the producers of the Bond films and portrayed by a succession of actors like Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore and latterly Daniel Craig.
I was probably first introduced to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by the 1979 TV series starring Alec Guinness as George Smiley. In the story Smiley has retired but he is brought back into the intelligence fold after Lacon, the senior civil servant responsible for the service, asks him to investigate a story that has been brought to him by a missing agent named Ricki Tarr. The story concerns a ‘mole’ working for British Intelligence but passing information to the Soviet Union.
Kathy Burke plays Connie Sachs, an old Soviet watcher who became convinced Soviet diplomat Polyakov was a spy but her idea was rejected by the new Circus leaders but Smiley realises Connie might have been on to something. There are various suspects for the mole and they have all been given code names by Control; Tinker, Tailor, Poorman and so on. Control expected Prideux to come back with a code word but he did not and by the time he was exchanged and returned to the UK, the poorly Control had passed away.
I’ve always been a writer, even as a school kid I was writing stories and screenplays. I used to write scripts and do all the casting. Not sure whether Steve McQueen would have appreciated the roles I was planning for him though.
Well, more of the same really. I’ve begun to work on a follow up novel to Floating in Space but a novel is hard work and I sometimes wonder if I’m up to the task. Even my latest book, Timeline, which is just a collection of stories and blog posts was pretty hard work. The big problem is just me, being motivated and just getting myself geared up to work and write. Writing short stories is much more enjoyable and I’m really pleased at how my stories have turned out. A few are available for readers to download and enjoy, just click on the download link above.
I did read some news snippets over the previous weekend indicating Starmer was planning to resign on the Monday but I pretty much dismissed that as just a rumour without any background. Of course journalists have their contacts within government and certainly whoever started that rumour off must have had a good source because he was proved fully correct.
Those memories and other ones always come back every time I look at that picture. I happened to be looking at it this week as I scanned through some of my old posts looking for inspiration. The photo only took a moment to take but it’s nice to think about that house and all the happy times I had there. Not only that, my Grandmother and Grandfather lived there before us. They later moved to Prestatyn in Wales and my Mum and Dad took over the house when they were first married so it’s almost like a little bit of Higgins’ history, wrapped up in a picture.
Dad worked for Manchester Highways and his job title was, if I remember correctly, a flagger’s mate. His job was to lay pavement flags throughout Wythenshawe in south Manchester as well as to work tarmacing roads and repairing potholes. He rode to work on his bicycle every day of his working life armed only with his backpack containing his lunch; his sandwiches made by my mother and his brewcan. He used to use that brewcan even when he retired. Where he got the hot water from when working on the roads I don’t know unless he either went back to the Highways office or perhaps asked people where he was working to top up his brewcan.
