The Sun Also Rises (1957)

Film: The Sun Also Rises (1957)

Stars: Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, Errol Flynn, Eddie Albert, Juliette Greco

Director: Henry King

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Errol Flynn: click here to learn more about Mr. Flynn (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Errol Flynn, one of the most consistently strong performers at the box office for Warner Brothers for nearly 18 years, ended his career with the studio in 1953.  At that point Flynn was in his mid-40's, and while his handsomeness was still there, years of drinking & health problems made it unlikely that he could achieve some of the stunt acrobatics that were a huge calling card in his early fame.  After going broke trying to self-finance The Story of William Tell (a film that never was actually released), he started to make bad decisions with his career, making B-movies, choosing poor projects like Istanbul & The Big Boodle, and only really had one important film left in him, where he would have to endure the indignity of being fourth-billed, here against a guy who for much of the 1930's & early 40's, one could argue Flynn was a more important action star than, Tyrone Power.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Sun Also Rises is a glossy Fox film that tackles Ernest Hemingway's famed novel.  This is where I'm going to confess something that doesn't often come up on this blog: I don't particularly care for Ernest Hemingway's writing, and in some ways that translates to the screen.  A lot of the novel's strength comes from discussions about Jake's (Power) impotence, both as a man who has moved on from a war (and a nation that has stolen his virility without much thanks), and that comes across in the movie...to a degree.  The Hays Code was getting hit a little bit at the time (if you look at posters for this film, they say very clearly "Not Suitable for Children" and that's because they use the actual word "impotence" in the film), but that lack of sexual stamina is lost in the movie because they can't really discuss it as the Code still drove a lot of scripting decisions.  It doesn't help that Power is at least ten years too old for this part (it's hard not to wonder how different this might've been in the hands of an actor like Marlon Brando, who was closer to the age Jake is in the novel), and that they aren't really able to point out how Ava Gardner's Lady Brett absolutely loves sex, and while she takes on some "lovers" in the film they aren't really hinted at in an oblique way.  It all feels dry and neutered (pun truly unintended...only caught the double entendre while editing this article).

Flynn's character is essentially a cad, one who can satisfy Brett (which Jake can't, even though they're in love with each other), but isn't honorable and is a giant walking fuck boy.  This isn't a new part for Flynn, but I will say that, even robbed of much of his charisma (and a decent script), Flynn is the best part of this movie because there's an unrest in his performance that I found really melancholy.  He plays his Mike as a man who knows he's a failure and likely to die unsatisfied...but also can't stop himself.  Flynn would die of a heart attack, exacerbated by cirrhosis & fatty degeneration of the liver, just over two years later at the age of only 50.

That is not where Flynn's story ends though, and in many ways it was only beginning.  In terms of Classical Hollywood stars, only Marilyn Monroe can rival Flynn for things we found out about him after his death.  For starters, there are allegations that Flynn had a sexual affair late in his life with 15-year-old actress Beverly Aadland, whom he would make his last movie Cuban Rebel Girls with (during which time Flynn spent much of production becoming pals with Fidel Castro).  There have also been a lot of debates about his politics, with some accusing Flynn of being a fascist, specifically the highly-publicized biography by Charles Higham which also alleged that Flynn was bisexual and was a Nazi spy.  There is no evidence of him being bisexual or a spy (he was investigated by the FBI, and they didn't find evidence of this), but it is a case where he was friends with Herrmann Erben, who was a Nazi intelligence officer during World War II, and whom Flynn was friends with until at least 1940 (after meeting on an expedition to Spain in the 1930's), and possibly throughout World War II.

This was not the only friendship that Flynn had that caused headlines after his death.  A correspondence with Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard was uncovered in Penthouse magazine in 1982 by Hubbard's son Ronald, and the two would engage in sexual & drug-induced debauchery together.  It's worth noting we haven't heard from Flynn's son Sean, a photojournalist, about him because he would disappear in 1970, likely being killed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (we talk about this more in one of our Unsolved Hollywood mysteries articles here).  All-in-all, Flynn's life is remarkably complicated by the many things he was never asked about as they came to light after his death, making his star persona one of the most challenging to tackle beyond the big screen.