Errol Flynn is a star known primarily for swashbuckling adventures, westerns, and war movies that showcased his machismo physicality and roguish charm— films like Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). As pitch perfect as he is in those films, it’s a delight to watch him upend his established screen persona with a movie like 1946’s Never Say Goodbye, a screwball comedy that frequently sees him playing the patsy with aplomb.
Flynn plays Phil Gayley in the James V. Kern-directed Warner Brothers comedy, a New York City-based painter who has been divorced from his wife Ellen (Eleanor Parker) for about a year, their seven-year-old daughter Phillipa (nicknamed “Flip” and played by Patti Brady), vacillating between spending six months with one parent and the next six months with the other. Flip desperately wants her parents to reconcile so she no longer has to do the shared custody dance, and it would appear from their interactions that Phil and Ellen wouldn’t be opposed to getting back together either.
Naturally, in typical screwball fashion, there are a number of obstacles standing in their way. Phil (who Ellen has previously accused of philandering with his models) is being pursued by his current one, Nancy (Peggy Knudsen)— although he doesn’t appear nearly as interested in her as she is in him. Phil attempts to woo Ellen back with dinner at their favorite restaurant, Luigi’s (the proprietor is delightfully planed by stalwart character actor S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall). But Phil forgets that he had already scheduled a date with Nancy at the same restaurant at the same time, resulting in a frantic juggling act as he tries to dine both women at once. Meanwhile Flip, with the nicest of intentions, starts writing letters to a Marine, Fenwick (Forrest Tucker, later of F Troop fame) because she heard on the radio that there are still lonely soldiers out there even though the war is over. Phil thinks it would be funny to enclose a photo of Ellen in a bathing suit in one of Flip’s letters, inadvertently causing Fenwick to believe that she has been the one writing to him; when he shows up one day, Ellen is content to let him flirt with her to make Phil jealous. The film particularly subverts Flynn’s leading man image here in its comparison of him with the buffer Fenwick; in arguably the film’s most memorable and notable sequence, he mimics screen gangster Humphrey Bogart— long since type-casted as a tough guy— in an effort to appear more formidable in front of Fenwick. But rather than Flynn himself imitating Bogie’s distinctive drawl, Bogart himself provides an uncredited voiceover cameo, sending up his own screen persona and making Never Say Goodbye a must-watch for Bogart fans.
The holiday element enters the story when one particularly silly misunderstanding unfolds on Christmas Eve. Phil always played Santa for Flip in the past, and assumes that he will do so this year as well even though he is no longer living with her. He doesn’t realize, however, that Ellen had already asked her divorce lawyer Rex (Donald Woods), who’s been courting her, to fill that role. The two Santa’s collide when Phil sneaks into Ellen’s apartment, resulting in Ellen believing that Phil is Rex, and even featuring an amusing take on the Groucho/Harpo Marx mirror bit from Duck Soup. You need only have seen a few yuletide screwball comedies to be able to predict that it all culminates in a spectacular crash into the Christmas tree.
The perpetually underrated Parker serves as a sturdy foil to Flynn’s antics, while the latter, while insufferable at times, capably dances between acting like a big kid and serving as a genuinely sweet and fun father to Flip (who is precocious but manages to avoid falling into the usual child performance traps; Brady only made a handful of films after this one, which remains her most notable role). There’s even a winking nod to Flynn’s most famous film role, when he plays “Robin Hood” while escorting his daughter. Look out also for the venerable Hattie McDaniel, underutilized though she is in the rather thankless role as the Gayley’s maid Cozy. Never Say Goodbye may lack originality, but its wintry New York City setting, in addition to its Christmas Eve centerpiece, makes it a great old-fashioned charmer for the season.
Never Say Goodbye is available to rent on all digital platforms. Runtime: 97 minutes.
Katie at the Movies 