Kevin Kline as Errol Flynn in "The Last of Robin Hood" Once upon a time, when old movies traveled the crackling airwaves and before everything in black-and-white had been banished to TCM, Errol Flynn was one of the kings of late-night TV. Countless hours of school-night sleep were sacrificed to "Captain Blood," "The Sea Hawk," "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and Flynn's cry of "Welcome to Sherwood!" His star may have faded since his heyday in the 1930s and "40s, but the dashing Flynn is regarded even now as one of the most beautiful men to ever work in Hollywood, and one of its more maligned: A 1980 biography claimed that the Tasmanian-born leading man had been a spy for the Nazis when in fact he'd been a supporter of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and was later a drinking buddy of Fidel Castro's. The author later admitted fudging the evidence, but the damage was already done to an actor who never needed help damaging himself. Statutory rape charges in 1942 nearly derailed his career; hard drinking and drug use ruined his looks. And his late-life liaison with a 15-year-old may become the defining chapter in a career of woman chasing that possibly inspired the phrase "in like Flynn." "The Last of Robin Hood" will star Kevin Kline as Flynn; Dakota Fanning as the teenager, Beverly Aadland; and Susan Sarandon as Florence Aadland, the stage mother who set them up - and who, say the film's directors, Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer ("Quinceañara"), "believed that everything in her life was predestined." "We are coming round to her point of view," Mr. Glatzer said. Our first day's shooting in Atlanta was in a neighborhood called Sherwood Forest, right by the intersection of Beverly Road and Robin Hood Lane. The project was inspired by Florence Aadland's 1961 book, "The Big Love," written with Tedd Thomey. She was a star-struck mother and former waitress who had exploited her young daughter even before handing her over to a notorious Lothario, the end result being genuine love as well as a story about statutory rape. Flynn was just 50 when he died of a heart attack in 1959. Mrs. Aadland was long dead by the time Mr. Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer, both Los Angeles directors, became friends with Mr. Thomey, who is also now dead. So is Ronnie Shedlo, a consultant on the film who died in 2007 and had been Flynn's personal assistant on the set of "Cuban Rebel Girls"; that Flynn-produced film featured the young Beverly Aadland, who herself died in 2010. Researching the story became a race against time. So did production of the movie. Mr. Glatzer, over the last several years, has developed a neurological disorder depriving him of speech. "Doctors initially said A.L.S. and were not very upbeat," he said, referring to what is often called Lou Gehrig's disease. But here I am, still totally functional, working 14-hour days and feeling fine. I just have to speak with an iPad. He participated in an interview online. The movie was under way long before Mr. Glatzer's affliction. "It actually took us 10 years to track down the interview tapes Florence made for the book," he said. "The Last of Robin Hood," aiming for a fall festival premiere, is a highly unusual tale, even for Hollywood, which has turned Flynn into a somewhat tamer-than-real-life character in projects like the 1985 television biopic "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" and the 1982 comedy "My Favorite Year" with Peter O'Toole as the Flynn-inspired reprobate Alan Swann ("I'm not an actor. I'm a movie star!"). Guy Pearce (in "Flynn," 1993) and Jude Law (in "The Aviator," 2004) have also tried their hand at Flynn. But no account has addressed Flynn's appetite for underage women. "It's a very controversial, scandalous, somewhat distasteful situation and relationship," said Pam Koffler, who with Christine Vachon is producing the film through their company, Killer Films ("Boys Don't Cry"). "There's also a way to see it as really a love story," she said. Why couldn't a 50-year-old man be in love with a girl of Beverly's age? It's the reverse that seems less plausible. "But he's charming and fun and understood her," Ms. Koffler said. I didn't find it so difficult to believe in their romance, but I also think the story doesn't shy away from what is difficult about accepting it. Flynn became an instant star with "Captain Blood," in 1935, but by the mid-40s and films like "The Adventures of Don Juan," his looks were shot and his star descendant. "His early performances have a wonderful dash and bravura," said Morris Dickstein, film critic, professor and author of "Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression." "But like Barrymore, he eventually disappeared into his own caricature and made his "Wicked, Wicked Ways" his calling card." He added, "It would have been a sad case, except that he seems to have had a good time of it." The Flynn-Aadland romance, with the celebrity-crazed Florence Aadland (herself the subject of a 1991 stage show, "The Big Love," starring Tracey Ullman) hovering over the couple, makes "The Last of Robin Hood" a pretty obvious metaphor for today's idol-obsessed culture. "I don't think anyone would want to make it if it wasn't," Ms. Vachon said. Then it becomes a relic. It says a lot about fame and the commodity of fame and what people will do to get to it. The two directors were obviously smitten with Beverly Aadland herself, to whom they were introduced by Mr. Thomey. "Once we'd passed muster, she was very open and told us the complete story," he said. Beverly Aadland's third husband, Ron Fisher; his daughter, Aadlanda; and her daughter, Navaeh, all came to the set in Atlanta, played extras in an airport scene and watched Ms. Fanning bring Beverly Aadland to life. "It was a very emotional moment," said Mr. Westmoreland. After Flynn's death, Beverly Aadland married and divorced twice, married Mr. Fisher in 1969 and lived a quiet life with him and their daughter in Palmdale, Calif. She never acted again after "Cuban Rebel Girls." "She actually was not Hollywood-obsessed at all," Mr. Westmoreland. She saw show business as a fun thing to do. She had no drive that way. Once she was on her own she gravitated toward a regular life. She raised her kid, and fed the neighborhood cats. It was, Mr. Glatzer added, "a bit like the end of "Lolita." "