Captain Blood (1935) Director: Michael Curtiz
“Break out those sails and watch them fill with the wind that’s carrying us all to freedom!”
Captain Blood is another rollicking, soaring, swashbuckling Errol Flynn adventure. It is based on the 1922 novel of the same name by Rafael Sabatini. Much of the film was shot on a Hollywood sound-stage, however the epic battle scenes at sea were shot in Laguna Beach, CA. The film was a huge public and financial success, and was nominated for Best Picture. The score for the film is also a delight, crafted by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and nominated for an Academy Award.
Captain Blood tells the story of Peter Blood (Errol Flynn), an Irish physician in the 1680s in England. He views his job as a duty to help his fellow man, however when he gets caught treating a wounded rebel against King James II (this is the Monmouth Rebellion), he is imprisoned and tortured for helping the rebellion. He is sold into slavery in the West Indies and dispatched off to Port Royal, but he is purchased by a young maiden who fancies him – Arabella Bishop (Olivia de Havilland), niece of the ruthless military commander of Port Royal. Like the Biblical character of Joseph, Dr. Blood works his way into the favor of the Governor of Port Royal and treats his leg for Gout (he is then hired as the Governor’s personal physician), and during a raid of Port Royal by Spanish pirates, Dr. Blood leads his fellow enslaved men in an ambush of the Spanish ship and they commandeer it. They toss Commander Bishop into the water, forcing him to swim to shore. He vows to find Blood. Meanwhile, the new “Captain Blood” institutes a brotherly political system aboard the vessel –wealth will be shared and all the men will be treated fairly. They sail off to Tortuga, “where easy money consorted with easy virtue.” Some time passes and they meet up with a French captain named Levasseur (Basil Rathbone) who captures an English ship containing Arabella Bishop. On a remote island, Captain Blood offers to buy her for a string of pearls but instead he and Levasseur fight to the death for her, with Captain Blood winning the sword fight. Captain Blood vows to do the noble thing and return her to Port Royal, despite objections from some of his men, and he arrives to find her uncle, the commander, gone and France bombarding Port Royal with two ships. He and his men sneak upon them and destroy both ships. Blood is then offered a privileged standing in the British Navy along with his men and he becomes the new Governor of Port Royal in the end with Arabella Bishop.
Inspired by MGM’s Mutiny on the Bounty (which won Best Picture in 1935), Warner Brothers sought to also make an adventure film that was in-line with the new Hays Code. For their lead, they found the grinning, raucous Australian actor Errol Flynn for his first starring role in Hollywood (he was apparently struggling with Malaria at the time but he nevertheless managed to deliver a great performance). Captain Blood also elevated rising star Olivia de Havilland who was fresh off Max Reinhart’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland were to quickly become one of the most sought-after onscreen pairings in Hollywood (they both secretly fell in love but apparently never acted on their feelings). Their partnership famously culminated in the dazzling technicolor adventure The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) (which also featured fellow Captain Blood actor Basil Rathbone).
The set pieces in Captain Blood are simply staggeringly –grand and towering– however the crew also made use of clever trickery like miniatures and they even borrowed footage from an old silent film entitled The SeaHawk (1924), which was incidentally also based on a story by adventure novelist Rafael Sabatini. But the standout feature in Captain Blood is Austrian composer and child prodigy Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s magnificent score (which was cobbled together in only a few weeks to score the whole film, with some parts borrowed from Franz Liszt).
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Credits:
- Director: Michael Curtiz
- Screenplay by: Casey Robinson
- Based on: Captain Blood (1922) by Rafael Sabatini
- Produced by: Harry Joe Brown and Gordon Hollingshead (with Hal B. Wallis as executive producer)
- Cinematography: Ernest Haller and Hal Mohr
- Edited by: George Amy
- Music by: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
- Production Company: Cosmopolitan Productions
- Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
- Starring:
- Errol Flynn…..Peter Blood
- Olivia de Havilland…..Arabella Bishop
- Lionel Atwill…..Colonel Bishop
- Basil Rathbone…..Levasseur, a French Captain
Other Notes:
- Basil Rathbone, who played French captain Levasseur, was actually an experienced fencer going back to his time in the service during World War I.