oscaralbert Review of The Big Boodle

The Big Boodle (1957)

Errol Flynn knew that Hitchcock would not film in Havana . . .

[7/10 · 10 March 2016]

. . . so he jumped at the chance to make THE CROUPIER WHO KNEW TOO MUCH there during the waning days of the Bautista Regime. Not yet fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with the Castro Boys as he shot his final flick, CUBAN REBEL GIRLS, a few months later, Flynn plays a patsy or pawn of a bigger game throughout THE BIG BOODLE. As Mr. Flynn settles for a screen lover slightly older than his 14-year-old Real Life preference, he appears oblivious to the fact that shadowy figures were beginning to coalesce around him off-screen, in an eerie parallel to the men constantly tailing his "Ned Sherwood" character from the start to the finish of BOODLE. Frankly, I'm sort of shocked that John Garfield's Ghost did not appear to Errol at 3 AM some sultry Cuban night, warning him that if the McCarthy Boys could get away with snuffing HIM out at Age 39--no questions asked--then Errol himself risked being shuffled off to a similar fate (now that he was pushing the geriatric age of 50) UNLESS HE CHANGED HIS WAYS. But Errol seems to focus on Ned's problems here, clueless to the fact that In-Like-Flynn did not appeal to I-Like-Ike Americans, who'd prefer Out-Like-Flynn.