[Contains some minor spoilers about first 30 minutes of movie]
Mara Maru, one of Errol Flynn's more mediocre movies, is obviously an attempt to cash in on the success of the B movies of the time, what we now call film noir, while attempting to add a twist of the usual Flynn style (i.e. a swashbuckler). The early part of the movie is almost an exact copy of the opening of The Maltese Falcon - the main character (in this case Flynn's) partner is murdered, he meets with hostile police, a past love affair with partner's wife is revealed, and then he meets with various mysterious villains who offer to help him towards large bundles of cash, if only he will acquire something for them.
The mix isn't successful, with the noir element dominating most of the time, although the adventure quotient ups a bit later on. The problem with this is that Errol Flynn is great at being the charming rogue, but really not very convincing as the threatening Bogie-noir "man with a dark past" type. Indeed, no one is very convincing in this movie, most of the actors seeming like "Will work for food" types; moreover the plot proceeds much too slowly and ploddingly, and occasionally lapses into sentimentally, which has no place even in pseudo-noir. There are none of the directorial touches usually associated with noir movies either.
Mara Maru is not an awful movie, merely boring and a waste of time; there are thousands upon thousands of movies your time would be better spent watching than this one. I'd recommend instead checking out either some of Flynn's much superior full-blown swashbucklers like The Sea Hawk, The Adventures of Don Juan, or The Adventures of Robin Hood; or some full-blown noirs, like The Maltese Falcon or Touch of Evil.
Mara Maru, one of Errol Flynn's more mediocre movies, is obviously an attempt to cash in on the success of the B movies of the time, what we now call film noir, while attempting to add a twist of the usual Flynn style (i.e. a swashbuckler). The early part of the movie is almost an exact copy of the opening of The Maltese Falcon - the main character (in this case Flynn's) partner is murdered, he meets with hostile police, a past love affair with partner's wife is revealed, and then he meets with various mysterious villains who offer to help him towards large bundles of cash, if only he will acquire something for them.
The mix isn't successful, with the noir element dominating most of the time, although the adventure quotient ups a bit later on. The problem with this is that Errol Flynn is great at being the charming rogue, but really not very convincing as the threatening Bogie-noir "man with a dark past" type. Indeed, no one is very convincing in this movie, most of the actors seeming like "Will work for food" types; moreover the plot proceeds much too slowly and ploddingly, and occasionally lapses into sentimentally, which has no place even in pseudo-noir. There are none of the directorial touches usually associated with noir movies either.
Mara Maru is not an awful movie, merely boring and a waste of time; there are thousands upon thousands of movies your time would be better spent watching than this one. I'd recommend instead checking out either some of Flynn's much superior full-blown swashbucklers like The Sea Hawk, The Adventures of Don Juan, or The Adventures of Robin Hood; or some full-blown noirs, like The Maltese Falcon or Touch of Evil.