CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935) Errol Flynn shot to stardom as Peter Blood, a 17th-century physician who turned pirate after escaping unjust political imprisonment. It was a role the handsome, sea-loving Tasmanian was born to play, and he shaped it into Hollywood’s archetypal image of the adventurous hero. That he also became a romantic idol and a vision of gallantry in love is due in large part to his ideally cast co-star: radiant Olivia de Havilland in the first of their eight films together. Directed with panache by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca), scored with flair by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and featuring Basil Rathbone and Lionel Atwill as villains to remember, Captain Blood becomes a ride on the high seas of unparalleled enjoyment. THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX (1939) Bette Davis and Errol Flynn made The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex fascinatingly public, striking sparks in this lavish Technicolor tale of the ill-fated love between the aging Elizabeth I and the dashing Earl of Essex. Thoroughly unglamorous here – eyebrows and hairline shaved, face painted chalky white – double Academy Award? winner Davis exudes such intelligence, energy and ardor that her romance with the decades-younger Essex (Flynn at the peak of his remarkable good looks and athletic verve) is completely believable. Based on Maxwell Anderson’s play Elizabeth the Queen and directed by Michael Curtiz, the film was nominated for five Oscars? (Best Art Direction, Color Cinematography, Scoring, Sound Recording and Special Effects). THE SEA HAWK (1940) Cannons thunder, blades clatter and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s incomparable music swirls and flourishes in The Sea Hawk. In one of his best roles, Errol Flynn plays Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe, who commandeers a 40-gun galleon, endures captivity, and then boldly escapes to warn England of Spain’s armada. Working on his 10th of 12 movies with Flynn, Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) masterfully directs the film’s blend of royal intrigue and derring-do heroics – made on a then-lavish $1.7-million scale that included construction of two full-sized ships. The film was stirringly topical in its day. When Queen Elizabeth (Flora Robson) exhorts her country to maintain fighting readiness against tyranny “now and forever,” audiences knew forever had come: Hitler had launched his World War II air siege of England. THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON (1941) The 7th Cavalry Regiment, Gen. George Armstrong Custer says, rides “to hell or to glory. It depends on one’s point of view.” The point of view of Raoul Walsh’s spectacular They Died with Their Boots On decidedly favors glory. Errol Flynn portrays the famed cavalryman in this hoof-and-thunder chronicle tracing his career from dandyish West Point plebe to Civil War hero to frontier legend immortalized by the Battle of Little Big Horn. Olivia de Havilland, sharing the marquee with Flynn for the eighth and final time, plays Custer’s devoted wife Libby. And composer Max Steiner’s stirring music trumpets gallantry and sacrifice. DODGE CITY (1939) Where cattle drives end, trouble begins. Thirsty, trigger-happy cowmen pour into Dodge City, where might too often makes right. There ought to be a law in this corrupt, bullet-riddled town. In his first of eight Westerns, Flynn is as able with a six-shooter as he was with a swashbuckler’s sword. He confronts lynch mobs, slams outlaws into jail and escapes (along with co-star Olivia de Havilland) a fiery, locked railroad car. Hailed for Flynn’s sagebrush debut, its vivid Technicolor look and spectacular saloon brawl that may have employed every available stunt person in Hollywood, Dodge City later gained another distinction when it inspired Mel Brooks’ cowboy parody Blazing Saddles.