Cruise of the Zaca (1952)

Sorry, this movie sucks

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

hyped garbage

Fresh and Exciting

This is "Cruise of the Zaca", an American documentary short film directed by and starring Errol Flynn, who is mostly known today for his Robin Hood film and was a big star back in the day. This film here is from the last decade of his life and the writer is Owen Crump, an Oscar nominee. Here Flynn tells us about an expedition by sea and all he encountered during the journey, be it humans, animals or just the nature in general. But I must say this film, which is a bit shorter than 20 minutes, had little to offer in terms of nature documentary value and this is the only area of the film I was somewhat interested in. It may be a good watch for Flynn fans to see one of his rare works behind the camera, but everybody else can definitely skip it. Nothing memorable to see here and I give it a thumbs down. Actually the scene where they were jumping around the animal on one occasions was pretty embarrassing.

This is kind of fascinating to watch if you are an old time movie fan (like me) but at the same time it's soooo fake and in the actual real scenes with the animals it is torturous to watch. Someone else reviewing this said it was made in the late 1940's and I could believe that but I will say that helicopter looks very advanced for the 40's, not that 1952 is all that much later, maybe the helicopter scenes (very staged) were added later to the ship footage? So why do I say it's fake? Errol starts the show saying I had a banana and an apple not expecting what was in store for me, (oh brother). Then he gets in a helicopter and goes whale spotting and him and the pilot(!) are all leaning out to get a "close up" of the whales, yeah whatever. Errol falls into the ocean and the pilot almost falls in with him, I mean this is kids TV folks. Most of the animal scenes are stock footage spliced in with close ups of the crew, you rarely see the animals in the same frame with the actors. The times they are together is when you probably will cringe because things like putting a rope around a large sea lion's neck looks very brutal. One can just imagine Flynn scheming, "now how can I recoup this yacht's expenses?" "Oh yeah I'll tell Mr Warner I've got some great color footage and splice in some garbage with a helicopter in!" Maybe for Flynn fans late at night, otherwise stay clear, it's boring, fake, and unpleasant.

I'm a great Errol Flynn fan. This is a documentary made by Errol Flynn in the beginning of his lower days. The images are beautiful and the narration is very entertained, but the movie is too melancholic. Although it's in color the images are bad preserved. I think it's no more than a collectors document for the Errol Flynn fans, but not because is a bad filming but because it's not more than the filming of Errol Flynn in holidays in a oceanographic expedition with his father, his wife Nora at that time, and others marine scientists. The film starts at Flynn's home in Hollywood and ends in his home in Kingston, Jamaica.

Type of film they'd show at a Saturday matinee between the cartoons and the first feature, to boost popcorn sales. Flynn and his yacht grab some marine biologists and stop at some islands to pick up specimens. Interesting to Flynn fans, to see his hair long prior to filming DON JUAN, but pretty dull for anybody else.