Australian Crawl

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June 20, 1909 — Errol Flynn is born

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Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn was born in Hobart, Tasmania. His parents were Theodore Thomson Flynn, a professor of biology at the University of Tasmania; and Lily Mary Young, later Marelle Flynn. They had married in Balmain North, Sydney, on 23 January 1909 – which implies a little about their motivations for marriage.

That said, there is no reason to think that Flynn was unloved as a child (or at least, not unloved by the standards of his time and culture). He later attended school with future Australian Prime Minister John Gorton, who would also become a notorious larrikin.

Errol Flynn1.jpg
By User Roisterer on en.wikipedia – Accessed from http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an13384126 (National Library of Australia), Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

Errol — Australian Crawl

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December 26, 1935 — “Captain Blood” premieres

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The 1935 adaptation of Rafael Sabatini’s 1922 novel, “Captain Blood” was the second film version of the story, after a 1924 silent version. It was a surprise hit for Warner Bros, which took a chance on two unknowns – Errol Flynn and Oliva de Haviland – as the leads. Not only were they both immensely attractive, but also, their chemistry was magnetic. The pair would go on to make 7 more films together over the next 6 years, almost always as a romantic couple. Their best known film is 1938’s “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (which re-teamed them with their “Captain Blood” co-star Basil Rathbone).

Flynn in particular distinguished himself not just as a leading man, but also as an action star (although his swordplay was the despair of Rathbone, who was actually a trained fencer, but required to lose to Flynn by the plot). The film, while melodramatic by modern standards, was one of the first great pirate movies, and Flynn’s Captain Blood has influenced almost all subsequent cinematic pirates. The film grossed more than double its million dollar budget, and ensured the careers of not just its actors, but also its director, Michael Curtiz.

Captain Blood.jpeg
Link

As mentioned in:

Errol — Australian Crawl

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January 27, 1961 — Soviet submarine S-80 is lost with all hands in the Arctic Sea

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Originally launched on October 21, 1950 at Krasnoye Sormovo Factory in Gorky, the S-80 was a Whiskey Class submarine, and was later overhauled between 1957 and 1959. On January 27, 1961, the S-80 was sailing through the Barents Sea (a portion of the Arctic Ocean between the Svalbard Islands and the Arkhangelsk Oblast, directly north of Murmansk). At about 1:27am, the S-80 dropped below snorkel depth, but a mechanical fault caused portions of the submarine to flood.

Alarm spread, but not as quickly as the water and the cascading mechanical faults. In the end, a total of 68 men – the complete complement of officers and crew – lost their lives in the sinking. The S-80 and the men aboard it were not found for seven and a half years.

Whiskey Twin Cylinder submarine.jpg
By User Sietse Snel on en.wikipedia – Downloaded from this webpage., Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

Reckless (Don’t Be So) — Australian Crawl

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August 18, 1979 — Singer James Reyne is hit by a car

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So imagine this: it’s the day before your band’s big debut. Your first single is doing well on the charts, but you’re still recording the rest of your first album. You’re even going to be on national television, on the highest rating music show in the country. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, your lead singer could hit by a car as he walks across Swanston St in central Melbourne. You could all wind up waiting anxiously at the hospital to see if he’s going to be okay.

As it happens, he is. James Reyne suffered minor fractures to his arms. Australian Crawl recorded their first appearance on Countdown the next day, Reyne sporting a matched pair of plaster casts on his forearms. Disaster was narrowly averted, and Reyne’s distinctive vocal style went national for the first time. The legend began, and the band later memorialised the incident in song on their first album.

While this date is almost certainly incorrect, this song was too much fun for me to leave out. I’ve dated it based on the generally agreed date that the car accident occurred the day before Reyne appeared on Countdown sporting plaster casts on both arms. The only problem with that is that Countdown was most likely pre-taped – this date is based on the broadcast date. it’s as close as we’re likely to get barring the release of the definitive James Reyne biography, though.