‘GENTLEMAN JIM’: Errol Flynn’s Swashbuckling Knockout Put Robin in the Ring
By Gregory N. Joseph
Although the mention of Errol Flynn most often evokes images of his bravura Golden Age performance in “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (his portrayal of that character was ranked the 18th greatest American film hero by the American Film Institute), 1942’s “Gentleman Jim,” with Flynn as old-time boxer James J. Corbett waging his most famous fight against the great champion John L. Sullivan, is my favorite among Flynn’s estimable body of work.
Flynn, considered the successor to Douglas Fairbanks as the screen’s king of the swashbucklers, lived up to that promise with starring roles in films like “Captain Blood,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” “They Died with Their Boots On,” “Dodge City,” “Santa Fe Trail” and “San Antonio.”
But “Gentleman Jim,” based on Corbett’s autobiography, “The Roar of the Crowd,” and directed by the great Raoul Walsh (the third of seven films he and the actor collaborated on), is quintessential Flynn, the sleek, daring young man on the rise and at the top of his game, here supported by a pantheon of fine actors of the day including frequent Flynn sidekick Alan Hale (this time as Flynn’s proud but feckless father), Ward Bond (as a blustery, barrel-chested Sullivan), Alexis Smith (as his smitten but sassy love interest) and Jack Carson (as his well-meaning but gullible and socially awkward best bud). Among the supporting cast is William Frawley a decade before he became a household name as Fred Mertz on the classic television sitcom “I Love Lucy,” here playing to the absolute hilt Corbett’s feisty, energized, banty-rooster of a manager, promoter and cornerman Billy Delaney (you’ll never look at Fred Mertz quite the same again).
There are some clever plot touches fleshing out Corbett, most likely entirely fictitious, at best apocryphal, and very much of the 1940s romanticized biographical form, such as having him get into scraps with his brother to explain his toughness and fighting prowess, having himself paged at a hotel to shamelessly promote himself, and worrying about having his hair perfectly combed during matches.
The real-life Corbett (1866–1933), who graduated from Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco and was “rumored” to have a college education, has been called the “Father of Modern Boxing” for his athletic dodging, dancing and weaving technique in the ring, Muhammad Ali before there was a Muhammad Ali. That entertaining and often harrowing style against sometimes bigger and stronger opponents, plus being blessed with a natural sense of theatricality and movie-star good looks that led to a second career in stage acting, resulted in his being christened “Gentleman Jim” by an admiring press eager to capitalize on his charisma.
Errol Flynn was the perfect choice to play Corbett, his cocky preening and wisecracking as Corbett a masterful piece of self-mockery that is both endearing on a real-life personal level and serves the character’s theatrical bent as well; Flynn and Corbett seem like proverbial peas in a pod. It’s difficult to think of any star of the era capable or better-suited to pull this off, save perhaps for Clark Gable, who, truth to tell, couldn’t have matched Flynn’s athleticism.
The movie came along at the perfect time — for America, Hollywood and the world, when people still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression suddenly found themselves enmeshed in another world war (the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor occurred just five months before filming began) and were desperate for good, splashy entertainment that offered a few hours of welcome escape.
It was not only one of the great boxing films of all time, an unabashed valentine to the “sweet science,” but an artful period piece capturing the humor and raucous boldness of the end of the 19th century as America was poised to take on the revolutionary 20th, a transition only 40 short years before the movie was released that must have amused and thrilled audiences then.
The film’s climax — when Corbett finally meets Sullivan in the ring for boxing’s heavyweight championship on Sept. 7, 1892, at the Olympic Club in New Orleans — succeeds both as a clash of styles that transforms the sport, pitting Sullivan’s crude raw power against Corbett’s graceful, strategic counter-punching, but also, importantly, in informing us that much more is on the way for the country from a sociological and cultural standpoint.
By the time Corbett unleashes a lethal combination of punches that finally topple the lunging, lumbering Sullivan in the 21st round, we feel as though we’ve taken a journey inside and outside the ring. The drama and excitement are expertly framed by director Walsh, who gets that.
The review of “Gentleman Jim” in The New York Times, on Nov. 26, 1942, was positive: “Though it is primarily a fight-fan’s delight, this lusty Warner Brothers film biography of the life and times of James J. Corbett, who danced his way to fistic immortality and introduced a new refinement of the fight game, has Errol Flynn in the title role and enough good quality as an entertainment to make it a satisfying show for anybody’s money.”
Audiences agreed. The film, Flynn’s third of 11 with Curtiz, had box-office returns of $1.78 million domestically and $3.8 million worldwide, against a budget of $972,000.
Alas, Flynn, who had trained so hard and determinedly to get into shape for his role as Corbett (it’s said he even suffered a mild heart attack during filming) died at the young age of 50 on Oct. 14, 1959, during a trip to Vancouver, British Columbia, to lease his beloved yacht because of business difficulties. Physically aged well beyond his years — the coroner said he had the body of a 70-year-old — his personal life and film career were by then in tatters, the result of his hedonistic, burn-the-candle-at-both-ends womanizing, brawling and drinking lifestyle (see “My Wicked, Wicked Ways,” his posthumously published autobiography with Eric Conrad, and “Bring on the Empty Horses,” a memoir by David Niven — Flynn’s roommate during their earliest days as young actors in Hollywood and his co-star in the classic 1938 remake of the World War I aviation epic “The Dawn Patrol” who remained a loyal if flummoxed friend over the years — for a glimpse of his complex and troubled life). The slang phrase “in like Flynn” became attached to him for his sexual conquests, popularized in 1942 at the time of statutory rape allegations against him involving two minor girls; he was acquitted of all charges after a widely publicized trial the next year, but the term and its tawdry inference shadowed him to the grave. References to his profligacy didn’t end with his death — he became the subject of ridicule and parody in the decades that followed (see 1982’s “My Favorite Year”).
“Gentleman Jim,” like “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” presented this most underrated actor at his best — it was reportedly his favorite role — and as he should be remembered: a charming, roguish swashbuckler on and off the screen who brought that special something to his portrayals, as the great ones do, reminding us once again of those who made the Golden Age of Hollywood golden.
