 Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill, Basil Rathbone
Director: Michael Curtiz
Year Of Release: 1935
Plot: In 16th Century England, Dr. Peter Blood doesn’t want to get involved in either side of a rebellion against King James, but his strong morals won’t allow him to let a wounded rebel soldier to go without medical aid. However, when he’s caught treating the soldier, he’s arrested, tried and convicted of treason, and sold into slavery in the Caribbean. Bought by the beautiful niece of the local military commander, Blood rails against his enslavement but earns a strong reputation as a doctor. However he then plots his escape, taking many of the other slaves with him and becoming a pirate. |
I’ve mentioned before my belief that while people always like to say movies were better in the old days, that’s not true (for example when I was writing about An Affair To Remember). The perception that there was once some sort halcyon age when all films were great is largely down to the fact that most of the rubbish has been forgotten, so we just tend to the remember stuff that stands the test of time.
Another one of the allied popular ideas is that blockbusters are getting stupider and stupider and that in the past the big movies were all far smarter and better made. Again this is largely a case of people not realising how quickly we forget the majority of movies – often even if they’re fairly popular on their first release. If you look back through lists of the top grossing movies from a few decades ago, it’s amazing how few the average the person would recognise (while a lot of films that were less profitable at the time are still known now).
Although accurate figures aren’t available for films as old as Captain Blood, 10 years later, in 1945, the top movie in America for the year Mom and Dad. Ever heard of it? No, because it’s about sex education and was screened for gender segregated audiences, but people flocked to it in droves. You might think that’s an isolated example because it’s such an unusual film, but two years later in 1947 the top film was Welcome Stranger, followed by The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, with The Egg and I, Unconquered and Life With Father rounding out the top five. You have to get to number eight until we reach a film many will have heard of, Road To Rio (that said, The Egg and I was the first of the Ma and Pa Kettle movies). It’s not like decent film weren’t made in 1947, as it was the year of Gentlemen’s Agreement, Miracle On 34th Street, Black Narcissus and Out of the Past. They just weren’t as big box office draws as films we’ve pretty much forgotten now.
It’s the same right through the 50s and 60s, where there’s virtually no year where there aren’t at least a few titles that will mean nothing to 99.9% of people, while quite a few films that were released in the same year, but weren’t such big box office hits, are still around now. Of course this doesn’t mean these forgotten films are awful, but it’s certainly true that if you look at old box office lists, generally it’s the same sort of silly, mind numbing escapist fun that was popular in the past, that is popular today.
Even if you look at some of the films that were very successful on their first release and are still relatively well known, such as Captain Blood, the fact is modern blockbusters are no sillier than many big studio movies were in the past (although again the classics that are exceptionally famous and well-regarded do tend to be a cut above). As with today’s blockbusters, Captain Blood was a band-wagon jumper, trying to ape the popularity of Treasure Island the year before. It was also the movie that made stars of Errol Flynn (who I always think of as a sort of 1930s George Clooney – all smoothness and charm) and Olivia de Havilland.
Captain Blood is a pretty silly swashbucling story about a doctor forced into slavery (the film sees white slavery as abhorrent, while staying relatively mute on whether the same should be said for black people) who then becomes a pirate. It’s full of the sort of narrative contrivances that modern movies get lambasted for, as if films in the past never did this sort of thing. For example on the night Dr. Blood is going to escape, he’s captured (while being pompously nobly, which seemed to be popular in 1930s heroes) but then the Spanish attack, which saves the day. Later in the film he goes into business with another pirate (for reason that are never satisfactorily explained), which is largely an excuse for Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone to have a swordfight on some rocks over the women Errol’s character is in love with, but who’s been conveniently captured by the duplicitous Rathbone.
It is an immensely daft story, with wafer thin characters who are more wish-fulfilment surrogates than real people, and they are certainly no better on that front than an awful lot of today’s big film. There are plenty of other stupid things about the film as well. For example Blood sets up a pirate ship where the buccaneers all seem jolly happy to sign up to the doctor’s proto-socialist philosophy, and don’t care if they lose a few body parts (which heal miraculously quickly), because they love the pirate life and get a bonus if they do get injured. It’s pretty much a socialist utopia on the high seas.
It’s just a silly as the likes of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, or many of the other modern blockbusters, but it is a lot of fun and designed purely as a bit of escapist fluff. Like I said, the idea modern films are getting worse, are more dumbed down than in the past, or that audiences are becoming less discerning, is purely because it seems to be true until you actually start looking at many of the popular films of the past and also realise how much crap we’ve forgotten. The massively famous old films, like Casablanca (which was also helmed by Captain Blood director Michael Curtiz), are the exceptions, not the rule. In general they got just as much silly, dumbed down but entertaining nonsense in the olden days as we get today. Captain Blood is a good example of that, as it really does feature nearly all the pros and cons of today’s summer blockbusters, but without the fancy special effects.
And just before I finish, I have to mention one particular scene, which I think is hilarious. Captain Blood was made right at the very beginning of the Hays Production Code era when Hollywood cleaned up its act and stopped being as violent and risqué as it had been before. However directors still liked to push the boundaries and so Captain Blood has what passed for a threesome in 1935 cinema.
The scene in question involves Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone and a woman lounging on a bed, with the men arguing over the woman. Although they barely move, both men spend the scene with their pistols in their hands, held so they’re sticking out at waist level. I’ll leave you to imagine what that imagery evokes. It’s very funny and brilliantly unsubtle, and almost by itself makes the film worth watching.
NOTE: Captain Blood is currently only available in the UK as part of the Errol Flynn Signature Collection box set
TIM ISAAC
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