BusinessWeek unearths phrase linked to Errol Flynn

It’s rare these days that one gets a chuckle when reading a business publication.  Many serious happenings.

Yet, media-observing Grumpy Editor got a rare hearty laugh from the lead item in “The Business Week” front-of-book section in the Nov. 26 issue of BusinessWeek. 

The section, edited by Harry Maurer and Cristina Lindblad, led off with an item headlined “Shocker on the Street” dealing with selection of a new CEO at Merrill Lynch.  The short opened with, “Practically everyone assumed Larry Fink was in like Flynn.”

In like Flynn?

Grumpy Editor hasn’t heard that phrase in some time.  Once widely used, now it continues into the 21st century.

Obviously, that item’s writer has much gray hair --- or recently watched the History Channel.

The “in like Flynn” term made the rounds during World War II.  It came out after a February, 1943 Los Angeles trial in which movies’ swashbuckling action hero, actor Errol Flynn --- known for his romantic exploits ---was acquitted in a statutory rape case involving a teenage girl.  (It was Flynn’s belief that the district attorney made him a scapegoat in order to discipline the Hollywood motion picture community.)

In the BW item, by the way, Wall Street rumbles had Fink, CEO of BlackRock Inc., an investment firm, succeeding ousted Stanley O’Neal at Merrill Lynch.  Instead, the job went to John Thain, head of the New York Stock Exchange.