Captain Blood (1935)

Cosmopolitan Productions/ Warner Bros.
Director: Michael Curtiz
Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland

On Christmas Day 1935 Warner Bros. would premiere in New York City a swashbuckling adventure picture that captured the imaginations of audiences and launched an unknown actor into movie stardom. This million dollar picture directed by well seasoned, but still not yet legendary Michael Curtiz would bring Australian born actor Errol Flynn to American audiences in a high seas escapade of piracy. With bold, thrilling action and a leading man that seemed to embody many of the attributes a leading man called for during the golden age of Hollywood, Captain Blood would be one of the most successful films critically and financially for the year ending 1935 and beginning 1936.

Captain Blood is a swashbuckling adventure of a man wrongful sentenced into slavery, creating his only way into a free life through mean of piracy, turning him into a legend of the high seas. Errol Flynn plays Dr. Peter Blood, whose good deeds as a physician wrongfully lands him a sentence of treason for treating a freedom fighter against the crown of England, sentencing him to slavery in the English colony of Port Royal, Jamaica. Blood’s education and chivalrous ways earn him respect from both slave and masters alike, but when the mistreatment of fellow slaves get out of hand, especially being they all were sentenced for treason under the mad and unjust King James,  he bands up his fellow slaves on a hijacked pirate ship as a means of escape, creating a livelihood as pirates. Blood’s leadership earns him and his men a infamous name across the ocean, and when sought after to serve the new King of England after the overthrowing of James, the men fight heroically as new members of the British navy, all the while saving his former owner and lover interest Arabelle Bishop (Olivia de Haviland). Through his accolades Blood is then appointed the new governor of the colony with his new love by his side.

The picture is an impressive production with high energy and adventure. Curtiz’s direction is masterful as he moves the camera and edits with great intensity that enhances the action that takes place both on the waters and battles on land. The only drawback may be from the writing, where title cards are created to fill in the story for lengths of time in the tale, creating a disruption in the flow of the picture. A seemingly new treasure in found in Errol Flynn, an actor plucked from Australia for having that special something words cannot describe. As if channeling the swashbuckling adventure and suave demeanor seen in the silent days of Douglas Fairbanks, Flynn seems to bring you back to the feelings one may have shared in The Black Pirate or Robin Hood with Fairbanks as star, but with Flynn’s own more subtle way or carrying himself. The plot is fair, about freedom fighters that suffer because of political injustice and returning to be patriots after the man in power is overthrown by his ways. Together with a decent plot, good action, masterful direction, and just a little overplayed acting (as was normal at the time) it makes for a good film, a good enough picture to warrant an Academy Award nomination for best picture of 1935.

Curtiz was a busy filmmaker over the two decades leading to this feature. He was well respected enough to continually receive work dating back to the silent days of the 1910s, but here we begin to really see this man blossom into a master of the craft. It would be his first shot at a major picture of this status and his work would not go unnoticed. Despite not being nominated for best director that year Academy voters wrote him in so often that he would finish second in the category to John Ford for his work in The Informer. It is admirable praise to have academy colleagues usurp the listed nominations to write Curtiz in and nearly win the award.

The film’s star Errol Flynn was a literal no-name actor when Warner Bros discovered him in films produced in Australia. To cast such an actor in a starring role in his first major American picture would be a bit of a gamble that paid off handsomely as Flynn would become a massive star in Hollywood for years to come. His smile and demeanor evokes the same style of Fairbanks of the not too distant past, but for the days of the talking feature Flynn was subtle enough with his overly handsome charm that he would become a star in the adventure films that dotted the screen for the next decade plus.

Flynn’s fellow co-stars were relative unknowns as well. His love interest in the film was Olivia de Havilland, a freshly picked actress out of the local amateur stage scene in the Los Angeles area. Her simple beauty and grace coupled with her acting would help her find work, first as a Shakespearian actress, but with the help of this feature she would land bigger and better roles, including The Adventures of Robin Hood, along side of co-star Flynn, and Gone with the Wind as a major supporting character. For the villain of the picture was Lionel Atwill, an actor known for his roles in horror features, but here plays his usual role as a overly-righteous man bent on catching Captain Blood. Atwill’s role seemed to not stray too far from the range he could provide as a somewhat limited actor. Then there is Basil Rathbone who plays a smaller role as a shortly lived fellow pirate captain that Blood at first sides with, then turns against after he proves to do more unjust while mistreating Miss Bishop. A South African born actor who falls right in with the Shakespeare crowd, Rathbone would one day don the familiar cap and magnifying glass of Sherlock Holmes for a number of pictures, an image that would long stand with the character’s portrayal.

Captain Blood would a greatly thought of picture that winter season at theaters. The film would be praised not simply on story, direction, and acting, but also for its sound, receiving nominations for best sound recording and editing at that year’s Academy Awards as well. Above all the film launched the career of Errol Flynn and pushed Curtiz to producing some of the best movies ever made in his coming future. Captain Blood stands as a fine film for its period with its romantic view of the days of swashbucklers. In watching the feature you will notice its hints of how it inspired the countless films that have followed in its wake even decades later.