I have been a George MacDonald Fraser fan from the first “FLASHMAN” I shoved in front of my myopic eyes. I have read and re-read them many times and laughed anew each time. His appended historical notes only added to my enjoyment.
I always wondered why the series was not made into movies - aside from the poorly executed Playboy production in 1975 with Roddy McDowell.
Really? Flashman is quite funny, historically pretty accurate, and quite funny, but the protagonist is a self-professed coward and cad, and is racist, and a rapist to boot. He usually faces a crisis by either blubbering in fear or sacrificing someone else so that he can run away. I can see the movie being a tough sell. It’s going to be very hard to film it without falling into blatant tongue-in-cheek buffoonery or, if played straight, alienating audiences completely.
I don’t think it would work as a movie - you need Flasman’s internal monologue (where he reveals himself to be the smartest, funniest bloke around - a cowardly spiv, sure).
On their own - most of his actions are reprehensible. With access to his thoughts, still reprehensible, but understandable.
Timothy Dalton would have been perfect casting for the younger Flashman, and would still be great for the older version; these days I’d love to see John Barrowman give it a shot.
I concur with the views expressed above – suspect in fact, that this is why there have been hardly any attempts hitherto, to make films of the Flashman books. I personally found the 1975 film Royal Flash, mentioned upthread, extremely lame. Admittedly, for me any “film of a book” is almost invariably disappointing.
It might work as a darkly comic indictment of the entire colonial era; Flashman as the ultimate entitled imperialist swine, but at least one who is self aware and cynical about it all.
As for whether the books can work, you can make a good movie out of just about anything. Look at Cloud Atlas or A Cock and Bull Story (Tristram Shandy), both great movies made from books considered absolutely unfilmable.
Hadn’t thought about it, but John Barrowman would be great.
In a world where a movie like “Little Big Man” can hilariously juxtapose our hapless protagonist with history, I don’t see why Flashy couldn’t make it.
But you’d need a team as good as “Little Big Man” had to make it work and be fun.
Just the once, in his youth, and he decided that he preferred willing women. Stack that up against all the times in Flashman’s Lady when he was forced to be Queen Ranavalona’s sex-toy on the perfect understanding that the first time he couldn’t get it up would be the last time he saw the world from outside a crocodile’s belly, and you may think that overall he was more sinned against. The reader may be able to think of other examples. As a rule Sir Harry had to beat off the skirt with a shitty stick.
Flashman is vile, but in his memoirs he is perfectly honest about it. An awful lot of the great figures of 19th century history turn out to be giant hypocrites or barking mad, by comparison.
I think it’s a bit of a stretch to call him racist, as well. He has a searing contempt for all of humanity, not least his own class and society, and can actually shows quite a bit of respect for most of the peoples he encounters in his travels, at least if he likes its representative: he’s able, if not happy, to engage most societies on their own terms, and in that is far ahead of most of his contemporaries.