Errol Flynn has more in common with the readers of this site than you might expect. Of course there is the prodigious drinking and rampant shagging but it turns out that he was a big supporter of the Cuban revolution as well.

I’ve just finished watching an astounding documentary that he made just after the revolution which he introduces and narrates. It opens with Errol sitting in an office. If you ever have to produce a picture dictionary and want an image to illustrate the word “louche” you need look no further. He’s smoking cigarette in a cigarette holder, shirt rakishly unbuttoned and smirking like a man who has just pleasured someone very desirable thirty seconds before appearing on camera. He points to a map of the world and indicates Cuba explaining that he is going to tell us about a man who loves liberty called Fidel Castro whom he went to see in the Sierra Maestra.

Flynn introduces us to the Mafia controlled Cuba with a shot of George Raft’s gambling club explaining that Raft couldn’t be in the film “because he was doing something with Marilyn Monroe”. The film is full of little asides like that.

All through the work there is no doubt about which side Flynn is on. There are clips of peasants working themselves to death “for unscrupulous landlords” and references to Fidel Castro and his “gallant warriors”. He likes the word “gallant” nearly as much as he admires Castro. Displaying a July 26 flag that he received from Castro he adds “I won’t ever part with that”.

The final is surprisingly unsentimental. It shows the wounds on people who had been tortured by Batista’s police and the exhumation of the remains of murdered revolutionaries. A series of scenes in the revolutionary courts is concluded with footage of the execution of one of the old regime’s killers. He’s shown receiving the last rites and tumbling into the grave. Flynn was a big fan of revolutionary justice. He says he attended a number of trials and adds that the execution of a few hundred killers responsible for the deaths of thousands is entirely justified. This comment is followed by footage of a million strong demonstration in support of the revolution. Just the way any reasonable person would have presented the subject.

The film adds some detail to the tourist narrative of the revolution. Flynn repeatedly shows clips of street demonstrations and gives a flavour of the revolution as a popular movement involving many more people than Castro’s Granma survivors.

It’s a staggering piece of work from a wholly unexpected source. I recorded it from French TV and if time permits will try to upload this week. If anyone sympathetic to the Cuban revolution wants a copy on DVD contact me and we’ll come to a non profit making arrangement.

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