Errol and I

Degrees of difference may be worthless information, but somehow the concept makes you smile when it connects you to someone like Errol Flynn. On Saturday we visited my old friend Kevin, a man who among other things would make a fine dad, but who has no children of his own, so he dotes on his friends’ children. Besides candy, he gave Lilly and Ann each a large soft animal toy, a horse and dog respectively. He also has an enormous collection of DVDs and HVS video, so we watched some of those (Pee Wee’s Christmas Special isn’t really that bad).

While changing discs, we noticed that The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) was on one of the cable channels. Kevin’s video equipment is large and sophisticated, making that movie’s amazing Technicolor all the more amazing. The movie has a lot else to recommend it, so we watched a few minutes of it, including the fine climatic sword fight between Robin Hood and Guy of Gisbourne (Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone), the likes of which have not been done in more recent films, except maybe The Princess Bride.

Kevin remarked that someone we both used to work with, Howard (who died a few years ago), had grown up near Hollywood in the 1930s. Back then, his family had known Herbert Mundin, who played Much the Miller’s Son in Robin Hood, a small but distinct comic relief part. “It’s probably true,” said Kevin. “If you’re going to lie about knowing an actor from the golden age of Hollywood, why would you pick Herbert Mundin?”

Mundin was a British character actor in the ’30s who died in a car accident in 1939. I knew Howard who knew Mundin who knew Errol Flynn, at least on the set of that movie. A worthless bit of information, but entertaining all the same.