Like his swashbuckling predecessor Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn tackled the part of Don Juan in his late years, he was 39 when he made this film for Warner Brothers. Like Fairbanks, Flynn plays an older and wiser famous lover who's getting a bit bored by it all. Not unlike the real life Errol Flynn.
The Adventures Of Don Juan finds Tirso De Molina's famous lover sent home after a couple of escapades in the newly formed Kingdom of Great Britain. King Philip III and Queen Margaret give our hero a chance to redeem himself by teaching at the royal fencing academy.
He's up to his neck in trouble soon enough, but not the kind of trouble Flynn's usually in. The first minister Robert Douglas is planning a move against the Queen who he sees as his main obstacle for total power in the kingdom. And the great lover starts behaving more like Sir Lancelot and less like Don Juan where Queen Margaret as played by Viveca Lindfors is concerned.
Although Philip III was not the great ruler his father Philip II was, by no means was he as big a fool as Romney Brent plays him. The real Queen Margaret who was his Hapsburg cousin did in fact have considerable influence over domestic and foreign policy in Spain.
The Adventures of Don Juan was given a sumptuous production and won an Oscar for Costume Design and was nominated for Art&Set Design. I think the film's best asset besides Errol Flynn is Max Steiner's music. As Flynn films usually are well scored, this one even stands out among that group.
The Adventures of Don Juan marked the thirteenth and last film that Alan Hale made with Errol Flynn. If Alan Hale or Frank McHugh did not appear in Warner Brothers production it didn't seem quite right. Jack Warner kept those two guys busiest of all at his studio.
Although Errol was getting older and his hedonistic living was starting to show, the part calling for an older and wiser Don Juan was well suited for him. One wishes he'd done the role back in the middle Thirties as a young man however.
