It’s a delight.Ĭurtiz re-shot Errol Flynn’s first two weeks of scenes and even then, the actor’s inexperience comes through at times, but he is perfect as Captain Blood: handsome, charismatic, idealistic, funny, charming. Eric Wolfgang Korngold’s music score set new standards for this sort of thing, as did the battle sequences – actually you could say it for the whole movie. Basil Rathbone is sleek and sexy as a rival pirate, kind of the dark side of Flynn (Rathbone’s character is similar to what I imagine the real Flynn to have been like) Olivia de Havilland is a picture of innocence mixed with a dash of sauce Guy Kibee and the assorted crew are great fun (including Ross Alexander who plays the significant Jeremy Pitt role – he looks a bit withered and tragic here and in real life he killed himself soon after the movie). It was all brilliantly realised by director Michael Curtiz, his talented crew and magnificent cast. Swashbuckler, Cutthroat Island, Pirates), it’s confusing why they didn’t just remake Captain Blood or at least rip it off because it’s marvelously written within the first 20 minutes Errol has been caught up in Monmouth’s rebellion (the film is very pro-Protestant without saying so – but Spaniards and James II = bad, while the Duke of Monmouth and William of Orange = good), hauled in front of Judge Jeffries, shipped off to the West Indies, turned into a slave, become a doctor. So many later day pirate films floundered when it came to story (eg. So again, Flynn was lucky – not just in being at the right place at the right time with the right lack of competition, but with his collaborators on Captain Blood.įor starters there was Sabatini’s superb source novel, whose quality was matched by Casey Robinson’s adaptation. But who else could have played it? Ian Hunter? Brian Aherne? Both were tested. Wallis must have been excited – here was a potential action star under their very noses, one they could use for cheap rates, and people remember you more if you discover stars, etc, etc – but also nervous: Flynn was so green, this was going to be a $1.3 million movie, remember John Wayne in The Big Trail (1930) etc, etc. They looked at their own contract players, including Flynn. They tried to borrow Robert Donat, who had been in Monte Cristo, but he declined. Robinson, James Cagney, Paul Muni) or musicals (Dick Powell). Previously filmed in 1924, it follows the career of physician Peter Blood, who is sentenced to death for treason during Monmouth’s Rebellion, sold into slavery in the West Indies, and escapes to become a notorious-but-actually-nice pirate.īut who to star? The big male actors at Warners tended to be suited more for gangster stories (Edward G. The success of The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) and Treasure Island (1934) prompted a revival in the genre, so Warner Bros looked at their back catalogue to see what pre-existing IP they might be able to reboot ( plus ç a change…): they decided on Rafael Sabatini’s novel Captain Blood. Here and forever, the Light Brigade rides.Swashbuckler films had been popular in the 1920s (Douglas Fairbanks, etc), but fallen out of fashion with the Depression and the coming of sound. debut a memorable one with his stirring, heroic musical score. And legendary Max Steiner makes his Warner Bros. Olivia de Havilland, his Captain Blood leading lady, co-stars. Errol Flynn, fresh off his success as Captain Blood, stars as the leader of the 600 horsemen. The film's highlight: the charge itself, a masterful, pulse-pounding nine minutes of thundering hooves and flashing sabers that stands up magnificently against any Hollywood action scene of today - and brought 1936's Best Assistant Director Oscar® to Jack Sullivan for his staging of the vaunted sequence. "Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred." Inspired by history and Tennyson's poem, The Charge of The Light Brigade tells the tale of a band of British Lancers who challenge an army of 25,000 Russians.
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