Lights! Camera! Oxygen!

There are few sights sadder in cinema than an aging, wheezing action star still trying to swash his buckler in front of an expanding midsection. This sense of dread immediately came to mind after viewing the television trailer for "Rambo" - previews offering fleeting, nanosecond glimpses of the hero that left the viewer wondering, "No, wait! It can’t be!! That isn’t!" It can’t be the same guy who played Rambo 26 years ago! It’s deja vu all over again, considering that it was only in December of 2006 that a 60-year-old Sylvester Stallone improbably doddered back into the boxing ring in a reprise of his landmark role as Rocky Balboa.

Which brings to mind the quandary of, "When should an action figure call it quits?" The answer is usually proportionate to the bloated extreme of the actor’s ego.

John Wayne, in his 60s, wisely played upon his advanced years and declining physical condition in his Oscar-winning performance in "True Grit" in 1969, only to later misstep into then-rival Clint Eastwood’s "Dirty Harry" turf as renegade (albeit embarrassingly geriatric) lawmen in "McQ" and "Brannigan." At least his final role, as an elderly gunfighter dying from cancer in "The Shootist" (1976), restored deserved dignity.

Charles Bronson was still tirelessly meting out vigilante justice in his 70s in the bloody "Death Wish" films, although the passing of his beloved wife Jill Ireland in 1990 apparently softened him enough to play against type in the 1991 TV movie "Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus," as Francis Church, the New York Sun editor who penned the famous reply to an eight-year-old’s question in 1897. Before his death in 2003, Bronson starred as the sage patriarch in the "Family of Cops" trilogy of made-for-television movies.

At the relatively spry age of 52, action movie icon Bruce Willis proved he still had the right stuff to protect truth, justice and the American way as the frequently battered but reliably resilient John McClane in "Live Free or Die Hard." Harrison Ford, Hollywood’s oft-targeted grumpy old man (at the age of 66), will resurrect, for better or worse, intrepid archaeologist-adventurer Professor Henry Jones Jr. in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger read the writing on the wall when, at age 56, he starred in his last action flick, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," in 2003, before wisely entering the political arena that same year as the governor of California.

The glib world of politics apparently never seemed an option for the monosyllabic Stallone. After a beefy role (physically as well as dramatically) as the sheriff in a corrupt New Jersey suburb in "Cop Land," he descended a spiral of little-noticed roles in obscure action movies, from "Get Carter," a pointless remake of the far better ‘70s revenge melodrama which starred Michael Caine, to the direct-to-DVD thrillers "Driven," co-starring another faded action star, Burt Reynolds; "Eye See You," with Charles S. Dutton and Kris Kristofferson; "Avenging Angelo," featuring Anthony Quinn (which prompted one internet wit to refer to the film as "Rambo Meets Zorba"); and "Shade," with Jamie Foxx, Gabriel Byrne, and Melanie Griffith. If any readers have actually seen any of the aforementioned, please submit comments.

It seemed unavoidable that Stallone would return to the cash cow that fattened his wallet, sequel after sequel. Writing for the Onion A.V. Club, critic Scott Tobias commented, "If the Academy could take back one Best Picture award, it would probably be the one for ‘Rocky,’ " explaining that "what must embarrass Oscar voters is that what seemed at the time like an underdog story with real heart turned out to be the beginning of a cynical franchise, complete with four sequels that include bouts with Mr. T and Mother Russia," not to mention Hulk Hogan.

To reprise his role in "Rocky Balboa," 16 years after the last installment ("Rocky V"), Stallone reportedly trained for six months. Apparently, the 60-something performer was so impressed with the physical results that he decided - what the heck! - why not bring back Rambo, too? As with "Rocky Balboa," he directed as well wrote the screenplay, which finds the moody Vietnam vet leading a squadron of mercenaries to rescue captured missionaries in - eh, who cares?

Probably the most lamentable depiction of a moss-grown idol is the headlong fall of Errol Flynn, the icon of swashbuckling Hollywood heroes who, at the zenith of his screen escapades on the high seas, in the Old West and in Merry Olde England, garnered the adoration of countless, fawning women and the envy of begrudging males. Academy Award-winning actress Greer Garson ("Mrs. Miniver"), who starred with Flynn in "That Forsyth Woman," once noted that he would be "remembered by movie fans as the handsome, confident cavalier, the romantic conqueror in boudoir and battlefield" who "was able to make a unique contribution by bringing into our careful, regimented world a bright flash of poetry-in-action and deeds of derring-do."

Flynn was at the peak of his prowess from 1936 to 1942, beginning with a star-making role as an Irish physician who becomes a pirate in "Captain Blood," followed by rousing performances in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (dubbed "arguably Flynn’s greatest role" by critic Leonard Maltin), "The Sea Hawk," and, among several others, "They Died with Their Boots On," portraying George Armstrong Custer. By 1950, his career was sliding downhill. An insatiable sexual appetite and a debauched lifestyle of excessive drinking, drug use, brawls and lawsuits were taking their toll on his once beautiful face and formerly peerless athleticism, despite brave attempts to recapture past glory in such swashbucklers as "Adventures of Don Juan" (1949), "Against All Flags" (1952), "The Master of Ballantrae" (1953), and "Crossed Swords" (1954).

Perhaps it is no coincidence that Flynn’s final three major Hollywood roles were as boozy, world-weary souls: as the hedonistic Mike Campbell in the 1957 screen version of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises; as actor John Barrymore (who, according to studio head Jack Warner, "literally boozed himself to death") in the 1958 film based on Diana Barrymore’s autobiography Too Much, Too Soon; and as a hard-drinking British army deserter in director John Huston’s 1958 African adventure, "The Roots of Heaven."

Sad, embarrassing and tragic are words that have been used to describe his last movie, 1959’s "Cuban Rebel Girls" (also known as "Assault of the Rebel Girls"). Flynn, who was a Fidel Castro sympathizer, wrote and co-produced this low-budget muddle, playing himself as a correspondent sent to Cuba to interview Castro and cover the rebels’ overthrow of President Batista. Ads claimed the production was filmed with Castro’s full cooperation "during the heaviest fighting of the Cuban Revolution." Flynn even claimed he suffered a leg wound during a skirmish at a sugar mill. "Cuban Rebel Girls" earned notoriety as a starring vehicle for Flynn’s 17-year-old "protégé," Beverly Aadland, a bit player (with a figure advanced beyond her youthful age) whom he had met two years earlier and who became his companion for the last two years of his life. Asked what he saw in a girl 33 years his junior, he replied, "She amuses me."

Errol Flynn died in 1959 at the age of 50. During his life he had endured attacks of malaria and bouts with tuberculosis and gonorrhea. In the final years, he had acute hepatitis, and next to nothing remained of his liver and kidneys. The coroner was reportedly amazed that Flynn had been able to reach 50.

Near the end, Flynn met with ex-wife Nora Eddington to inform her and their two daughters that doctors had given him no more than a year to live. Eddington was shocked by his ghastly appearance, recalling that "he looked like an old, old man, absolutely terrible. . .But he was strutting like a cock and trying to be debonair. He knew he was dying, but he wasn’t going to scream and yell about it." He told her, as only a diehard swashbuckler could, "Don’t be unhappy. You know I’ve lived twice and I’ve had a marvelous life."

As Ms. Garson recalled, "To millions of people the world over he brought exhilarating and joyous entertainment, and lifted their imagination and their spirits out of the doldrums and tensions of day-to-day living with a glorious vision of adventure, chivalry and romance."