Review of Captain Blood (1935) by Jacob M — 22 Mar 2014

PART OF MY CLASSIC VIEWINGS OF 2014 LIST.

"Up that rigging, you monkeys! Aloft! There's no chains to hold you now. Break out those sails and watch them fill with the wind that's carrying us all to freedom!".

Before Johnny Depp was Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Hollywood had Captain Blood, a swashbuckler to begin all swashbucklers, a massive success back in 1935, and the first hits of both Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, beginning a series of eight films together. I had been wanting to see another film with Errol Flynn, as like most modern film watchers, I was only familiar with his most famous, The Adventures of Robin Hood, which is without a doubt one of the greatest adventure films ever made. So naturally, I started with his first biggie. While Captain Blood is by no means a masterpiece as Robin Hood was, Captain Blood does what a good swashbuckling film should do; if you want fun action, then that's what you get when watching this film.

Based on a novel by Rafael Sabatini and set during the reign of King James II, Dr. Peter Blood (Errol Flynn) is accused of being a traitor, and along with other accused, is sold into slavery in the colony of Port Royal. Fed up with this torture, and using a Spanish invasion as aid, Blood and the other slaves escape and become pirates, with Blood being the captain. As Captain Blood, the pirates steal, drink, and have fun with women in Tortuga, but when he is reunited with the woman who bought him while a slave (Olivia de Havilland), a woman that he has a crush on, Blood starts to doubt whether going into piracy was worth it.

The film also stars Lionel Atwell as the cruel slave plantation owner, George Hassel as the gout-invested governor, and in a small role, Basil Rathbone as French Captain Levasseur.

As the film begins and we first see Errol Flynn on the screen, then you know the film is going to be fun. Some of the more political issues like tyranny and slavery present in the film was a little goofy and not as dark as one might expect, but being released during the Depression and the Hay's Code, and already knowing that the film was not going to be a compelling masterpiece, I was through it alright. Once Blood becomes a pirate is when the film become the fun film it is. There wasn't as much swordfights as I thought there would, but the ones we got were fun to watch, particularly one featuring Flynn and Rathbone, who were supposed to be good friends. There's also an exciting climax where the crew fights a French fleet.

When the film was in production, Errol Flynn was not the first actor to play Blood. Originally it was supposed to Robert Donat (who I have never heard of in my life), but he backed out doe to an injury. After some issues with other possible replacements, including Clark Gable, the studio cast Flynn, an unknown at the time, and was very risky for 1935. And the risk paid off. Flynn's acting chops aren't the greatest in this film, but being his debut film, he was still good for his beginning. Like with Robin Hood, it's Flynn's action stunts that make Flynn that great of an actor he is. The other standouts are Olivia de Havilland, who has the best acting chops, and has one of the best performances for a debut film while having good chemistry with Flynn, and Basil Rathbone who, despite having a very goofy French accent and only appearing in two scenes, was still a fun addition.

The film was scored by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who would later score The Adventures of Robin Hood, and while his score isn't as memorable as said film (Korngold did feel unsatisfied with his score here), but I was still pleased with the musical selections he makes in scoring. This was probably the closest people got to hearing epic music before the film scores became truly great, which I would say films like Gone with the Wind and The Adventures of Robin Hood were the beginning of great film scores.

It's not perfect, and it's not a masterpiece in any way, but Captain Blood manages to avoid the modern "dumb silliness" f action films and be a fun classic swashbuckler. Michael Curtiz, who would go on to direct even better films, such as The Adventures of Robin Hood and Casablanca, does fun in staging the action sequences and the debuts of both Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland is worth watching alone. If you want to see Errol Flynn in a film outside of Robin Hood, then this is definitely the one to start with.

"And that my friend ends a partnership that should never have begun.".