Falling over themsleves

Sean Flynn, covering the Vietnam conflict. Photo by Tim Page.

I can hear the gnashing of teeth from here. Headlines in the local press today and in the UK's Daily Mail on Saturday, suggest that two individuals have found some bone fragments, teeth and clothing that they hope are the remains of missing Vietnam War photojournalist Sean Flynn, son of Hollywood actor Errol, who disappeared nearly 40 years ago, in April 1970. They've passed their findings onto the American POW-MIA team who collect such remains, after spending a month digging around in the dirt in Kompong Cham province, near the Vietnamese border, following a tip-off. Veteran photographer Tim Page has spent years trying to trace the facts and last whereabouts of his friend Sean Flynn, who went missing with his pal Dana Stone and was believed to have been in the custody of the Khmer Rouge, and with a book and film in the works, he has expressed reservations about the latest discovery. It was only last year that The Road to Freedom was filmed in Cambodia, which is a fictionalized story of the two photojournos. In addition, another biopic based on the Perry Deane Young book, Two of the Missing, Remembering Sean Flynn and Dana Stone, is also in the works. It seems everyone is falling over themselves to get to the bottom of the Sean Flynn story.

Road to Freedom

'Camera, lights, quiet on the set please. Action.' You may be hearing this somewhere near you just about now as the film, The Road to Freedom, is currently being shot in Cambodia. Where exactly, I don't know. What's it about? Well its the fictionalized story of Sean Flynn and Dana Stone, two photojournalists who were covering the American conflict in SEAsia and who disappeared one day in 1970, captured by the Khmer Rouge. Filming is due to finish at the end of next month with an anticipated release date of January next year. Playing the lead roles are Joshua Fredric Smith (pictured right) as Flynn and Scott Maguire as Stone. The movie-makers in their PR blurb tell us a prison camp has been built and members of the Cambodian Army are playing themselves. Not sure that is something to shout about. Film director Brendan Moriarty is calling the shots so to speak, for a film that was originally known as 12:02. Not sure how this ties in with another proposed Flynn & Stone story being developed by veteran photographer and Flynn expert, Tim Page. We shall see. And there's another Flynn biopic in the works too based on the book, Two of the Missing. Follow The Road to Freedom's progress at their website.

A Tim Page portrait of Sean Fynn from the Meta House exhibition earlier this year

Two of the missing

One story that never seems to be far from the public eye is the disappearance of two photojournalists, Sean Flynn and Dana Stone, who were last seen in 1970 as they rode their motorbikes into Khmer Rouge-held territory. Vietnam war photographer Tim Page has been in Cambodia recently continuing his search for the truth about what happened to them and I'm told is positive he's found Sean Flynn's last resting place. There's a book and a documentary in the offing I believe. Another book about the pair, Two of the Missing, Remembering Sean Flynn and Dana Stone, has just been updated and republished in paperback by Press 53. This new edition contains 18 pages of photographs by and of these two photojournalists. Most of these photos have never been published before. "Sean Flynn and Dana Stone were among the bravest and best of that daring young crew of photographers who covered the Vietnam War," says author and friend Perry Deane Young. "Flynn was on assignment for Time magazine and Stone was a cameraman with CBS when they were last seen heading around a Communist roadblock near the Cambodian town of Chi Pou." Director Ralph Hemecker has optioned the film rights to the book and is now in the process of casting. The screenplay was written by Young and Hemecker. Young is the author of three plays and nine books, including the bestseller, the David Kopay Story. A journalist with UPI during the Vietnam War, he remembers his close friends and colleagues as he examines their lives and wonders what led them to take this one final risk. Young also includes profiles of several other colleagues who took very different paths from Flynn and Stone, including the legendary madcap English photographer Tim Page.