A dashing swashbuckler; a New Guinea plantation master; a drunk and opium fiend; a hero of the land and man of the sea; a published author; a man of action; a gentlemen and a Don Juan; a cowboy and a Castro sympathizer. From Australia through Hollywood and to Jamaica, Errol Flynn remains one of Hollywood’s greatest stars, and possibly, its greatest enigma.

Flynn was never bestowed any of Hollywood’s honors or awards, although his persona was an embodiment of the greatest asset a film star requires – charisma – of which he had an abundance. Flynn’s qualities as a film star were undeniable from his first starring role in CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935). His charisma often helped camouflage his limitations as an actor, and although his skills constantly improved, leading to a tour-de-force performance as John Barrymore in TOO MUCH, TOO SOON (1958), Flynn rarely embodied a character – the character embodied Flynn. Ironically, as his career deteriorated and his star faded, his performances became better and better.

Flynn’s virtues were many, but so were his vices. After a notorious statutory rape trial in 1943, in which he was acquitted, Flynn was stigmatized as an incorrigible ladies’ man, diverting any discussion of his film work to his sexual conquests, eventually consuming his life and career. Flynn may be the only actor with a phrase coined after him to describe a man’s sexual success – “In like Flynn.” This, unfortunately, still overshadows his achievements, leaving him a vastly underappreciated actor to this day.

The rape trial was a turning point in Flynn’s life and career, but problems with maintaining his public image began when he failed to join the war effort in WWII. He desperately wanted to enlist, and was rejected from every branch of the army he applied to. Flynn’s long health record, including tuberculosis and malaria, kept him from joining. He even wrote to the Office of Strategic Services, offering himself as a foreign diplomat. Regardless of his struggles to join, the public noticed the irony of Flynn, the great athlete and hero, staying at home while fellow actors like Clark Gable, James Stewart, and David Niven were fighting for their country.

Previously, Flynn had traveled to Spain as a Franco supporter during their civil war; later on he traveled to Cuba in support of Castro’s revolution; but his only way to participate in WWII was by raising the nations’ morale through cinema. The new TCM box-set, Errol Flynn Adventures, celebrates 5 of Flynn’s WWII films, allowing him to do something he so badly wanted to be doing in real life – killing Nazis.

Four of the five films in the TCM collection were directed by Raoul Walsh, who became Flynn’s signature director after the star parted ways with Michael Curtiz, who directed him in twelve films. Curtiz knew how to bring the dashing hero out of Flynn, whereas Walsh recognized the dualities inherent in Flynn’s persona. His dark sense of humor and melodramatic tendencies worked to incorporate melancholy even when Flynn was at his most charismatic.

In DESPERATE JOURNEY (1942) he certainly is at his most charismatic. When his plane is shot down over Germany, Flight Lt. Terry Forbes (Flynn) must lead his crew through enemy territory back to England. A fantastic story befitting an old Men’s Adventure Magazine, DESPERATE JOURNEY embraces and delights in its far-fetched plot. Walsh called it “a war comedy spiced with enough tragedy to give it reality.” The ensemble cast includes Ronald Reagan, Arthur Kennedy, and Alan Hale. They appear to have a genuine good time, roaming through Germany, beating the odds. The comedic tone doesn’t hurt the high suspense captured by the fast-paced plot, the striking black and white photography, and the beautiful Nancy Coleman as a German ally. Adventure films rarely get better than this.

Flynn’s rape scandal broke when DESPERATE JOURNEY was in release theatrically, but it didn’t hurt the box-office. During that time he was filming EDGE OF DARKNESS (1943). Directed by Lewis Milestone, it brings to screen the Norwegian resistance in WWII. Flynn plays a fisherman, the leader of the underground resistance in a small village, but he gets limited screen-time in what’s more of an ensemble film including Ann Sheridan, and Walter Huston.

EDGE OF DARKNESS tries hard to be important. The script features too many moments of high melodrama and over sentimentalism that’s not supported by its form. Even if the high aspirations of the filmmakers result in a flawed film, much could be said to its credit. Milestone directs the camera with incredible vitality, inventively utilizing dolly shots and zoom lenses to punctuate movements within the frame. The score, by Franz Waxman, beautifully compliments those movements, almost in dialog with them. Flynn and Sheridan, despite their uninspired performances, share wonderful screen chemistry, and Huston is worth watching in every scene he has ever done.

NORTHERN PURSUIT (1943) was the first film he shot after his statutory rape trial. Flynn stars as a Canadian Mountie trying to infiltrate a group of German spies on a mission in the Canadian mountains. Flynn seems bored with the material and with his female co-star, Julie Bishop. Raoul Walsh goes through the motions. The result is a mediocre vehicle for both. A bare-boned, slow-moving plot turns what starts as a promising snow adventure into a rather static affair. Conceived from the start as a quickie, NORTHERN PURSUIT would serve, at most, as a pleasant Sunday matinee.

When Flynn’s contract with Warner Brothers expired, he negotiated a new one that allowed him to choose his projects. UNCERTAIN GLORY (1944) was his first choice. Co-written by famed Western author, Max Brand, UNCERTAIN GLORY isn’t quite a WWII film as much as a Film Noir set against the backdrop of Nazi occupied France. Flynn portrays French criminal Jean Picard, condemned to die by the guillotine for the crime of murder. Preferring death by a firing squad, Picard offers Inspector Marcel Bonet (Paul Lukas) to hand himself over to the Gestapo, pretending to be a wanted saboteur, saving the lives of a 100 men the Germans threaten to kill unless the saboteur is brought to justice. Reluctant to turn himself in and become a martyr, Picard tries to escape at every given chance.

Flynn’s performance is sincere even when he lies. He plays Picard with conviction, and with a melancholic quality that characterizes his best performances. Beyond the façade of the dashing hero appears a thinking man, sometimes a broken one – an enigma not just to those around him but also to himself. Picard remains one of Flynn’s most interesting and personal performances.

The final collaboration between Flynn and Walsh, OBJECTIVE, BURMA! (1945), is an unsung masterpiece. A war picture, ahead of its time, that should be celebrated alongside other classics. Flynn heads a group of paratroopers who find themselves stranded in the Japanese-occupied Burmese jungle. With few supplies, they face a long walk back to safety. Flynn’s performance is restrained and powerful, starting off as a charismatic leader, progressing to a man who sees his friends butchered by the Japanese, struggling to keep his composure. One of his personal favorites, he’s truly at his best.

OBJECTIVE, BURMA! is uncharacteristically gritty and unrelenting, offering a glimpse into the miserable state of men in war. To achieve a realistic look, Walsh decided to shoot it on location, versus on a studio set, filming in swamps around Orange County. The photography, by the great James Wong Howe, is reminiscent of the period’s newsreels, never beautifying or highlighting the actors, giving the film a documentary atmosphere (Walsh also incorporated newsreel footage within the film). The score, by Franz Waxman, achieves a lot by resorting to minimalism. As the men venture through the jungle the score remains a low, suspenseful, undertone. Instead of bathing in glorifying music, Walsh thrusts heavily in terrifying silence. In terms of form, OBJECTIVE, BURMA! almost serves as an anti-war film considering the genre’s conventions in the 1940s.

Still, OBJECTIVE, BURMA! was made during the war as a tool of Hollywood propaganda. It had to comply with certain demands to raise morale, bookending it with positive affirmations to make it heroic. But Walsh intelligently subverts this notion. In the end, when Flynn is congratulated for a successful mission, he hands his commander a stack of dog tags belonging to the men he lost. “Here’s what it cost,” he tells him. The men’s lives become nothing more than currency. Walsh asserts his grim point of view about the film industry, that “war does many things besides killing a lot of people. It can make instant millionaires out of struggling businessman.”

OBJECTIVE, BURMA! opened in Britain and closed within a week. Severely criticized for its depiction of the Americans winning Burma, when the invasion was predominantly British. It is understandable how at the time, with tensions high, such matters would be highly offensive. In retrospect, we should treat Hollywood war epics not as a depiction of history, but as historical fiction. In his autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, Flynn remembers a later meeting with the King George VI. The British monarch inquired why people laugh about Flynn every time Burma is mentioned. “Sir,” responded Flynn. “Apparently the picture proved conclusively that I took Burma singlehanded and it was a pushover, sir.” This is Flynn’s war, and he’s winning.

Warner Bros Home Entertainment

There was a Volume One of Flynn hits, featuring CAPTAIN BLOOD, THE SEA HAWK, THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX, THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON, DODGE CITY, and a Flynn documentary, THE ADVENTURES OF ERROL FLYNN. Oddly enough, and certainly unexpectedly, this collection is as good as that one. It spans more years in the actor’s career, giving you a chance to see the physical arc he went through (which one can complete with WB’s THE SUN ALSO RISES, Flynn’s last fine performance, in another of their boxed sets, THE HEMINGWAY COLLECTION.) I’m not convinced that anything in the first collection is as good as THE DAWN PATROL, or as warm and personal as ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN. Also, as in the first collection, you see Flynn working with his two most important directors, Michael Curtiz and Raoul Walsh.

CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE, released and pulled from release in ’36, has Curtiz’s staunch physicality, but the romantic triangle thread was probably dramatically dated even at the time of release. Nonetheless it is a ‘must have’ for film history buffs, as its wanton destruction of over 200 horses – using the inhumane ‘flying W’ which guaranteed, in frame, a spectacular, leg-breaking fall – created such public protest that animal protection laws were passed as a result. The third act is jaw-dropping in this regard. Compare it to the ‘biggest multiple horse fall stunt ever recorded’ in John Wayne’s THE ALAMO where, though spectacular as promised, it looks like the horses are lying down gently on padded mattresses by comparison.

LIGHT BRIGADE’s DVD image, breathtakingly preserved from a 35mm source that must have been very close to the original negative, is reason enough to relish the film. Some of the first act art direction is worthy of William Cameron Menzies, and these interior scenes capture the full, extravagant gray tone range of the early nitrate film stock. Max Steiner’s score is also memorable.

And this disc has some interesting supplementals as well. GIVE ME LIBERTY is an Academy Award winning 1936 Technicolor short about the pivotal moments in Patrick Henry’s career, and John Litel gives the big speech his all, reminding me in not only his delivery, but in his looks, of Frederic March in DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE. He also reminds me, in that speech, a bit of Hitler in the climax of TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, searching for more flamboyant ways to match the tone of the speech with body language. The Technicolor looks particularly good in the flower arrangements and on the women’s hats. It was amusing to see one extra wearing a coonskin hat, symbolizing the presence of the citizens of Tennessee.

A Bob Hope short is only fair, though it’s interesting to note that his character is called ‘Robert Hope Jr.’ And an early B& W Porky Pig cartoon, set in a war zone, is more reminiscent in its abstract stylization of the Fleischer Bros work than the later Warner Bros Technicolor animation.

THE DAWN PATROL, by Edmund Goulding – not one of the big three that Flynn gravitated towards as ‘men’s action directors’ – steals the day with this great remake of an earlier Hawks flick, even borrowing footage from the original, which fits in seamlessly. Basil Rathbone, a great Sherlock Holmes and a great villain opposite Flynn, Power, and others, had a third character type – hysterical-under-pressure (not humorous hysterical; borderline-psychotic hysterical). He does it brilliantly in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (’39 – Universal Home Entertainment), and he does it equally well here. He strikes a perfect balance with Flynn’s devil-may-care WWI fighter pilot in the film’s first half…until Flynn ends up getting Rathbone’s job, and all Flynn’s carefree antics fade into somber reality. Flynn is at his best in this film, essaying the kind of nuanced acting arc that he somehow thought he never was given the opportunity to do. And David Niven is also perfectly cast as his fun-loving buddy. The editorial department keeps the pacing up while allowing strategic scenes to linger a while if characterization is more important than forward momentum, and the script deals us some wicked twists to keep our imaginations fired up. I think it’s one of the better Hollywood films of the era (although I might not want to put it up against the onslaught of ’39), and I always wished it had been remade by a trio of latter-day action stars (THE BLUE MAX really doesn’t do the job). It may not be on a level with CASABLANCA, but then what is?

DIVE BOMBER, despite having Curtiz at the helm, eye-candy Technicolor, and some truly magnificent aerial photography, is the stodgy, nearly unwatchable item in this collection. The conflict between combat surgeons and the air force fliers who take all the risks proceeds at an even, boring keel, and neither high altitude diving ‘black-outs’, nor the presence of an extraneous female to keep audience members on alert, does a thing for the passive viewer. Maybe it had an added level of interest in ’41, when the war was raging and Hollywood was actively promoting our future interest in it. Flynn goes for a ‘serious’ approach, but comes off as sedate. But…it does have that aerial footage!

Curtiz and Flynn parted ways after DIVE BOMBER, and Raoul Walsh moved in for the kill. His films with Flynn may be less classic in form, but they are warm and lush. And they are practically the last of Flynn’s best work. In the fifties he moved on to a third ‘men’s director’ – former wunderkind Technicolor cinematographer Jack Cardiff, who also did some great work with another physical male lead, Rod Taylor (DARK OF THE SUN…where are you!?)

Walsh did THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON from the first Flynn package, and he directed GENTLEMAN JIM in this collection. Based, occasionally loosely, on the career of heavyweight champion boxer Jim Corbett, Walsh gets all the details right. The best thing about the film is its period feel, and that’s not just the art department feeling its oats, or the screenplay, but Walsh’s own experience and quest for authenticity. Within this mise-en-scene, Flynn portrays a characterization both sympathetically naïve and boorishly self-centered. The fight scenes are a big surprise; they’re realistic, long, and quite effective, particularly when you see that Corbet introduced elements to boxing like Mohammud Ali’s floating footwork. The weakness is a lightweight dramatic core, with family sequences that we impatiently sit through, but it’s a pleasant half-of-an- evening’s double bill, to be paired with, say, RAGING BULL?

Flynn did most of his fight scenes, and during the climactic staging of the bout with John L. Sullivan (Ward Bond) he suffered a mild heart attack. It sidelined him for a few weeks, but he returned and finished the picture. It wasn’t in his nature to let his body’s condition stand in the way of his fun.

Walsh was scheduled to direct ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN, but due to studio strikes, etc., the production date was pushed ahead almost two years, and the director ended up being the uninspired, though certainly adequate, Vincent Sherman (1906-2006 – THE RETURN OF DR. X, ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT, MR. SKEFFINGTON, THE YOUNG PHILADELPHIANS, ‘BARETTA’ TV SERIES). Directorial flair is the weak link in this otherwise delightful, reflexively cinematic experience. Flynn was just starting to decompose from his many excesses, in addition to which he was plagued by court cases accusing him of rape (the film’s release capitalized on his off-screen exploits, much to his mortification apparently, as did the earlier GENTLEMAN JIM, which came out shortly after one of the female defendants in one of the trials stated that “he was no gentleman”, and also THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON, around which time a female defendant claimed that he wore his socks to bed), and this, his last big budget actioner, was accorded the Hollywood dream factory treatment. The script for much of its first two acts was tongue-in-cheek, referencing Flynn’s life as much as its fictional protagonist’s. The Technicolor gave as much life to the myriad costumes and sets as the director gave to the cast. Max Steiner’s score (an inheritance from Erich Wolfgang Korngold, again due to the vicissitudes of time delays) is rousing and memorable. And despite the alcohol-consumption Flynn brought to the table, it’s not apparent in his performance, which appears effortlessly stellar: he is appropriately gallant, seductive, patriotic, self-deprecating, and melancholy. If a viewer were introduced to Flynn here, not having experienced his glory days, they’d still get it.
Vincent Sherman appears on the commentary track, in his 90s, alternating with historian Rudy Behlmer. Sherman points out one scene where the film’s antagonist was supposed to be seated, and Flynn was to have walked around the set, but the star’s physical condition, following a night of debauchery was too debilitated to allow it, so Flynn sat in the chair and the villain moved about. It works even better, I suspect, considering the flow of the scene, but what a fascinating insight into the process – what to do when faced with a lead actor who was practically comatose by the afternoon.

Viveca Lindfors was imported from Sweden for this film, her first English language venture, and she’s good, though no Ingrid Bergman, which is what Warner Bros was hoping for. She went on to a varied and serious acting career, and ended up teaching at The School of Visual Arts, where I had many pleasant encounters with her. She threw a faculty party each year in her large upper-East-Side apartment, and was dedicated to her acting courses at the school. She died suddenly while on tour in Sweden, and I was sorry I hadn’t spent more time talking with her about her Hollywood career. She’d become a reliable third lead in those last years (EXORCIST THREE, STARGATE, etc) and told me how much she had loved working with George Romero on CREEPSHOW (soon to be a Warner Bros special edition, I’m told). But I wish I’d pressed her to tell a few tales about Errol Flynn.

Midget actor Jerry Austin is a worrisome presence in DON JUAN. Though the courts of the world did have midgets as jesters, putting him in the film threatened silly hi-jinks in the third act, which would interrupt the action. Fortunately, during the action-filled finale, he only jabs one guy in the ass with a miniature sword and walks away. It could have been much worse. But there is a scene a few minutes earlier where he’s walking down a corridor to ask some guards a question, and Steiner’s otherwise mature score devolves into ‘mickey mousing’ his every step. Dreadful. Foolish indulgences like that were standard studio practice in the Golden Age. John Ford’s idiotic fight scenes still give me the willies.

The condition of these films on DVD is exemplary. GENTLEMAN JIM looks like it was filmed within the decade. ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN appears to genuinely reproduce the Technicolor hues of yesteryear, with only an occasional shot or two (less than a minute in total) that seems degraded – perhaps damaged and replaced with Eastman protection negative.

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE – 1936. 115 mins.
Directed by Michael Curtiz. Score by Max Steiner.
With: Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Patric Knowles, Nigel Bruce, David Niven.
Supplements: Vintage newsreel. Short ‘Give Me Liberty’. Comedy short ‘Shop Talk’ with Bob Hope. Cartoon ‘Boom Boom’. Trailers.

THE DAWN PATROL – 1938. 103 mins.
Directed by Edmund Goulding. Screenplay by Seton I. Miller and Dan Totheroh.
With: Flynn, Basil Rathbone, David Niven, Donald Crisp, Barry Fitzgerald.
Supplements: Newsreel. Musical shorts ‘The Prisoner of Swing’ and ‘Romance Road.’ Cartoon ‘What Price Porky?’ Trailers.

DIVE BOMBER – 1941 – 132 mins – Technicolor
Directed by Michael Curtiz. Screenplay by Frank Wead & Robert Buckner. Music by Max Steiner.
With: Flynn, Fred MacMurray, Ralph Bellamy, Alexis Smith, Robert Armstrong.
Supplements: Featurette ‘Dive Bomber: Keep ‘Em in the Air’.

GENTLEMAN JIM – 1942. 104 mins.
Directed by Raoul Walsh. Screenplay by Vincent Lawrence and Horace McCoy.
With: Flynn, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, Ward Bond.
Supplements: Newsreel. Sports shorts ‘Shoot Yourself, ‘Same Golf’ (With Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman) and ‘The Right Timing.’ Cartoon ‘Foney Fables’. Trailers. Audio only radio-show adaptation with Flynn, Smith, and Ward Bond.

ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN – 1948. 110 mins. – Technicolor
Directed by Vincent Sherman. Screenplay by George Oppenheimer and Harry Kurnitz. Produced by Jerry Wald.
Music by Max Steiner.
Technicolor.
With: Flynn, Viveca Lindfors, Alan Hale, Ann Rutherford.
Supplements: Commentary track by Vincent Sherman and Rudy Behlmer. Comedy short ‘So You Want to Be on the Radio.’ Travel short ‘Calgary Stampede.’ Cartoon ‘Hare Splitter.’ Trailers.

“I remember someone once said: ‘Good things come in small packages’. He didn’t know you, Jayne Mansfield”.
– From “Jayne Busts Up Las Vegas”, released on vinyl in 1961.

It took a reported IQ of 163, three drama schools, some bleach, lots of determination and a figure of 40D-21-35 1/21 to create the greatest parody of a 1950’s bombshell. It was so raw, so in your face and so close to the male fantasy of the time that it was mistaken for the real thing.

IT (as in the sex-appeal the girl can’t help) was Ms. Jayne Mansfield, a woman determined to be a star and clever enough to know how to get her wishes. Mansfield sold herself as a product, as the only thing that could top Marilyn Monroe – The same, but bigger! She worked her own PR as slickly as the Sex Pistols did 20 years later, being in the right place at the right time, and making sure there was always a camera around.

She was quickly signed to Warner Brothers studios, but they misused her in bit parts and as a type of traveling Marilyn Monroe, appearing in many of the company’s events. Eventually, WB dropped her and Mansfield, desiring real respect as an actress, went on to star in the successful Broadway show, WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? She left only when 20th Century Fox, tired of the antics of their contract star, Marilyn Monroe, signed Mansfield to their studio.

The new DVD box-set serves as nice bookends to her 20th Century Fox career, including the first, best and last films she made for them. It is a double reason for celebration as two of those are amongst the best films of director Frank Tashlin as well. Starting with the finest Rock ‘n’ Roll picture of the 1950’s.

The Rock ‘n’ Roll exploitation genre exploded in 1956. Films like ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK, DON’T KNOCK THE ROCK, and ROCK ROCK ROCK all used a trivial plot as a vehicle for lip-synched performances by some of the day’s biggest stars. The best of these, was by far, THE GIRL CAN’T HELP IT, directed by Frank Tashlin who, as an outsider to that world, created a film that spoofed it as well as exploited it by having artists like Little Richard, The Platters, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Fats Domino and many others perform their hits on the big screen.

Mansfield shines as Jerri Jordan – A woman pushed into musical stardom against her will by her mobster boyfriend (Edmond O’Brian) and a music promoter (Tom Ewell) who she ends up falling for, and although she is unable to sing, her measurements are the ticket to her success. Tashlin criticizes pop culture and its embrace of looks and good PR over real talent – However like the real Jayne Mansfield, Jerri Jordan ends up proving that her talent is quite real.

Even some of the more serious reviewers discussed the film and Mansfield’s debut in terms of her looks and measurements. In the January 1957 issue of ‘Films In Review,’ Courtland Phipps dissects her visual traits more than actually discussing the film, and concludes by asking: “What are Ms. Mansfield’s chances of holding the world sex-pot championship as long as Marilyn did? Very good, provided she appears in better pictures than THE GIRL CAN’T HELP IT”.

Frank Tashlin was, and still is, terribly underrated. One of the greatest comedy directors and critics of 1950’s culture in cinema, he came from the world of cartoons where he directed and animated many Looney Tunes shorts before switching to live-action. His outrageous and wild ideas (‘Cheerful Nihilism’ is the title on one biography) instead of mellowing and conforming to the norm, translated themselves to his films both in imagery and structure. He was the only director who knew how to use Jayne Mansfield’s full potential, just as he was for Jerry Lewis (who would rarely work with directors other than Tashlin or himself), and another character he helped popularize – Porky Pig.

WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? The second film on the new set and again, directed by Tashlin, was based on Mansfield’s Broadway play and sees her in the role she made famous, that of Hollywood bombshell, Rita Marlow.

ROCK HUNTER is a laugh-out-loud comedy about a TV-Commercial writer (the brilliant Tony Randall) who finds himself entangled with a Hollywood starlet he tries to sign for the “Stay-Put Lipstick” ad campaign. Tashlin paints a world in which teenagers are madly obsessed with pop culture and adults are all alcoholics and pill poppers, constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown, always in the pursuit of success, in the shape of a bigger office, a flashier car or the key to the executive washroom.

As Rita Marlow, Mansfield again portrays a version of herself. With a lot of grace and brilliant comedic timing, Mansfield creates and molds the blond bombshell stereotype. To even further blur the line between Mansfield and Marlow (and keeping with the theme of advertising) the film is filled with visual references to her career, placing ads to Fox films she starred in as if they starred Rita Marlow.

1958 was a high mark for Mansfield. She married Mickey Hargitay, a bodybuilder she stole from Mae West’s traveling show, and the two had their first child together that year (Mansfield loved children and had 5 of her own during her lifetime). She also had a 4-week run in her own, highly successful live Vegas act (for which she was paid $25,000 a week). But back in the film-world, Fox had no clue what to do with her.

That year she made the third film in this new set, THE SHERIFF OF FRACTURED JAW, a mediocre western-comedy directed by Raoul Walsh towards the end of his career. It is no surprise that this film failed to bring in business, as it seems uninspired and rushed. Mansfield was completely miscast as a strong-headed owner of a hotel in the old west. The two noteworthy things about the film are that it was the first western to be shot in Spain and Mansfield’s last as a contract player at Fox, after which they loaned her out to other companies until dismissing her when her contract was up in 1962.

In the years that followed, Mansfield returned to her Vegas act (and it spawned a wonderful record as well) and became the first mainstream actress to appear nude in a film (PROMISES! PROMISES! In 1962) but the roles she got were getting worse and worse as she was succumbing to alcoholism, many of them in cheap European productions. Mansfield was slowly becoming a caricature of what she was, and by reprising the Monroe roles in the stage plays of BUS STOP and GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDS (and a rumored affair with JFK), she was turning into the label they once gave her, as a second-rate Marilyn or a real life Rita Marlow. Before her tragic, untimely death, she starred in a striptease nightclub act she defined as “satire”.

In her 1961 album she sings: “My IQ is easy to recall – It’s just the size of my bust.” Such a statement directly connects her sexuality to her intellect, which was too much for Hollywood to take (she really was TOO HOT TO HANDLE). Unapologetically embracing her sexuality, she was of a more animalistic nature than Monroe, who had so much grace and vulnerability that looking at her could tear your heart apart – Mansfield looks like she could tear apart your pants.

Even though Mansfield was the superior actress, she and Lorna Maitland (of Russ Meyer’s LORNA) share a similar essence. If Monroe is a different type of perfume, than Maitland is of the same brand (so is also Antoinette Christiani, star of Meyer’s MUDHONEY). They radiate sex in its purest form. It is the type of woman who Meyer so properly popularized as The Vixen. Mansfield was no imitation, she was one of a kind and, rather than being downgraded as a “Poor-Man’s Marilyn”, she should be hailed as the prototype of the Vixen.

The DVD Box Set features commentaries by film historians for CAN’T HELP IT and ROCK HUNTER which offer some interesting views. It also features a Biography Channel special on Mansfield which is a nice supplement and includes great interviews with Mansfield’s friends and family and is fun to watch, especially considering the only other biographical alternative – the 1980 made-for-television film, THE JAYNE MANSFIELD STORY, starring Lonnie Anderson and Arnold Schwarzenegger (and yes, it is as bad as it sounds). There is little excuse for such late releases of these films but now that they are out, grab them while they’re hot!

“The only thing she wants” said Jayne Mansfield once of her role as Jerri Jordan in THE GIRL CAN’T HELP IT, “is to be a wife and a mother, but sex interferes all the time. You could say that this character is really like me”.