Captain Blood is a 1935 pirate adventure film directed by Michael Curtiz. The film stars Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, and it is an adaptation of the 1922 novel of the same name by Rafael Sabatini.
Director: Michael Curtiz
Production Company: Cosmopolitan Productions
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill, Basil Rathbone, Ross Alexander, Guy Kibbee, Henry Stephenson
US Box Office: $3,392,500 ($135,300,000 adjusted for inflation)
Film Format: Black & White
Genre: Adventure
Release Date: December 26, 1935 (premiere)
Plot Summary: During the 1685 Monmouth Rebellion in England, Doctor Peter Blood (Errol Flynn) is made a slave as punishment for assisting a wounded rebel and sent to Port Royal, Jamaica. He is purchased by Arabella Bishop (Olivia de Havilland), the kind-hearted niece of the cruel plantation owner Colonel Bishop (Lionel Atwell), but ends up having to work for the Colonel. During a Spanish pirate attack on Port Royal, Blood and his fellow slaves escape captivity, commandeer the Spanish ship, and become pirates themselves.
Production: In late 1934, studio executives at Warner Bros. decided to produce a film based on the 1922 pirate adventure novel Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini. The novel had previously been adapted into a silent film in 1924 by Vitagraph Studios, and WB gained the film rights to the book after they purchased Vitagraph. The success of the recently released swashbuckling adventure films Treasure Island (1934) and The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) inspired Warner Bros. to create their own swashbuckling adventure. Harry Joe Brown and Gordon Hollingshead produced Captain Blood, with Hal B. Wallis as the executive producer. The film’s screenplay was written by Casey Robinson. Captain Blood was produced by William Randolph Hearst’s film company Cosmopolitan Productions, which was affiliated with Warner Bros. at the time. Prolific Hungarian-American director Michael Curtiz was hired to direct the film.
The lead role of doctor and pirate captain Peter Blood was originally offered to English actor Robert Donat. Donat had recently played the lead role in the successful The Count of Monte Cristo. Donat suffered from asthma and he turned the part down because he thought the action scenes would be too strenuous for him. A number of other actors including Leslie Howard, Frederic March, and Clark Gable were also considered for the part. After a successful screen test little-known Australian actor Errol Flynn was cast as Peter Blood. The studio was impressed with Flynn’s performance in the low-budget British film Murder at Monte Carlo (1935) and signed a contract with him. Warner Bros. originally planned to cast Jean Muir as Arabella Bishop, Blood’s love interest, but she turned down the part. The studio instead cast nineteen year old Olivia de Havilland in the part. de Haviland had only recently began her film career.
Michael Curtiz began filming Captain Blood in August of 1935, and shooting wrapped up in late October. The film was primarily shot on set at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, however a few scenes were shot on location. The island duel between Peter Blood and Captain Levasseur (Basil Rathbone) was shot at Laguna Beach, California. Additional location filming was done at Three Arch Bay and Palm Canyon. At one point during shooting Flynn became sick with malaria that he contracted while in New Guinea. No actual ships were used in the battle at the end of Captain Blood. Instead, the scene was shot on a large indoor set, with miniature ships and archive footage from The Sea Hawk (1924) being used for long distance shots of the ships fighting.
Warner Bros. asked Austrian classical composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold to compose the score for Captain Blood. Korngold initially declined because he thought that a story about pirates was outside of his range of interest, but he changed his mind after watching the filming. Korngold only had three weeks to compose over an hour of symphonic music for the film. Due to the severe time crunch, about ten percent of Captain Blood‘s score consisted of music that was previously composed by Franz Liszt. As a result, Korngold refused to be credited as a “composer” and was instead only listed in the credits for his “musical arrangement.” After Captain Blood‘s score received a positive response from critics and the public, Warner Bros. signed a film contract with Korngold. He became the first classical international composer to have a contract with a Hollywood studio.
Fun Facts and Trivia: Basil Rathbone was widely regarded as one of Hollywood’s best fencers at the time and his characters in adventure films were usually involved in sword duels. Rathbone notably dueled Errol Flynn in Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Leslie Howard and John Barrymore in Romeo and Juliet (1936), Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro (1940), and Danny Kaye in The Court Jester (1955). Despite his real-life fencing skill, Rathbone almost always lost his on-screen duels because he played the villain in these sort of films.
The character Baron Jeffreys (Leonard Mudie) was a real historical figure. Baron George Jeffreys was a Welsh judge who, like the film’s character, became well known for giving the captured rebels in the Monmouth Rebellion harsh sentences. Many years later Mudie played a character named “Captain Blood” in a pirate-themed episode of the television series Adventures of Superman (1952-1958). Shortly after he and his friends capture the Spanish ship, Peter Blood reads a proclamation that mentions the date as “this 20th day of June, 1688.” June 20th was Errol Flynn’s birthday. It is unknown if June 20th was always the date featured in the script or if Flynn just ad-libbed his own birthday over a different date.
Reception: Captain Blood premiered in the United States on December 26, 1935. The film was a big risk for Warner Bros., it cost over a million dollars and Flynn and de Havilland were both unknowns at the time. Fortunately the studio’s gamble paid off, Captain Blood was a big success at the box office and earned a profit despite its large budget and unknown lead actors. Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland quickly became big stars for Warner Bros. The studio paired the two together in seven more films: beginning with The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) and ending with They Died with Their Boots On (1941) [The two additionally made cameo appearances in Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943)]. Lux Radio Theatre broadcast a radio adaptation of Captain Blood on February 22, 1937, which featured Flynn, de Havilland, and Rathbone reprising their film roles. In 1962 an Italian film studio produced an unofficial sequel to Captain Blood titled The Son of Captain Blood that starred Errol Flynn’s son Sean in the title role.
Captain Blood received generally positive reviews when it was first released. Variety magazine correctly predicted that Captain Blood would establish Flynn and de Havilland as box office stars. Although the magazine criticized some of the film’s plot holes and thought that Flynn was too heroic to be convincing as a pirate, Variety still described the film as a “spectacular cinematic entry” and “quite compelling.” Andre Sennwald of The New York Times gave Captain Blood a strongly positive review. He praised Flynn’s performance and thought that Curtiz successfully recaptured “the air of high romantic adventure” required to make a good swashbuckling adventure. Ann Ross of Maclean’s praised the film for its sense of adventure, but thought that it didn’t work as a “genuinely villainous sea piece.”
Captain Blood continues to receive positive reviews from modern film critics. Don Drucker of the Chicago Reader praised Curtiz’s directing and Flynn’s performance. Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid noted that Captain Blood was hugely influential when it was first released and that it was still “very effective.” TV Guide gave Captain Blood a perfect 4/4 star review. Ken Hancke of Mountain Xpress and Jeffrey Westhoff of the Northest Herald additionally gave the film perfect 5/5 star reviews. Captain Blood was one of 400 films nominated by the American Film Institute for their 2001 list of the top 100 most thrilling American films. Flynn’s version of Peter Blood was one of 400 film characters nominated by the AFI for its 2003 list of the top 100 greatest film heroes and villains. Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s score was one of 250 film scores nominated by the the group for its 2005 list of the top 25 best American film scores.
Oscars: Captain Blood was only officially nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Picture (Hal B. Wallis, Harry Joe Brown, and Gordon Hollingshead for Warner Bros. and Cosmopolitan) and Best Sound Recording (Nathan Levinson). However, the film received write-in votes for three other Oscar categories: Best Director (Michael Curtiz), Best Screenplay (Casey Robinson), and Best Score. As a write-in candidate, Captain Blood came in second place for Best Director, and in third place for the other two categories. Frank Lloyd and Irving Thalberg won the Best Picture award for Mutiny on the Bounty that year.
Why You Should See It: Captain Blood is a great classic adventure film. The film helped to reestablish the swashbuckling adventure film in the sound era, and had a big influence on subsequent films in this genre. Although Captain Blood has a lot of action and generally moves at a fast-pace, Curtiz does a good job developing the lead characters. The sword fighting, especially the duel between Flynn and Rathbone, is quite good. The ship battle at the end of the film is exciting and impressive. Flynn and de Havilland give good performances and have good chemistry together.