Captain Blood by Michael Curtiz (1935)
6 August 2008A swashbuckling classic, with the amazing Errol Flynn, and his first of 8 films with the lovely Olivia De Havilland. This is adventure at the high seas with a heroic rogue, and the woman he loves whom he can only be at words with. Some great battle scenes (even if some footage was taken from another film) great dialogue, and an impressive score make this film the great that it is. And the message of always following what you hold to be true, and things will work out, works well, you must have honor to be a man like Captain Blood.
In 1685 England during the Monmouth Rebellion, when a revolution is brewing in England over succession, an Irish doctor named Doctor Peter Blood (Errol Flynn) gets a call to go and treat one of the people fighting the Kind, and gets taken in and convicted of treason. He is to be killed, but the Kind instead has the ones that have not been killed turned into slaves and sent to the Port Royal in the Caribbean. Blood makes the journey and is to be sold into slavery, but is bought by the beautiful Arabella Bishop (Olivia de Havilland) the niece of the local Colonel Bishop (Lionel Atwill). He is quite unhappy with it, but is sent to the easer plantation instead of the mines which would surely kill him. WHen the governor has a bad case of gout, his doctors are useless, so Arabella has Blood sent, and he does help, but plots to escape, and is almost caught, but Arabella helps him, and they profess their love. On the night of the escape the Spanish attack, and Blood gets out with his fellow prisoners, who are to take a boat they purchased, but it is sunk, so they instead take the Spanish Galleon, and save the town. They then leave as pirates, but with a code of rules to not harm women, and to help each other.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS...
Blood and his crew become rich and foolish, and make a deal with a french Pirate, but when the French pirate takes a ship that has Arabella returning form England and wants to have their way with her, and ransom her, Blood fights and kills the french pirate, and takes Arabella, and saves her and a dignitary from England.
Blood doesn’t want to talk to the dignitary who wants talk to him about working for the King, but he does, and refuses until he learns that it is not James II but William of Orange. They return to Port Royal and find that now governor Bishop has left it unguarded to hunt Blood, and the Spanish have taken the port.
Blood and his crew go and save the port.
When Governor Bishop returns he goes to the Governors mansion, but is told he has been relieved and his fate is up to the new Governor. In the chambers he finds Arabella begging the new Governor to be lenient, and we find it is Blood who is the new Governor of Port Royal.
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An amazing swashbuckling adventure. I wish they still made more films like this today!
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