CAPTAIN BLOOD
Watching Flynn in this role, it’s hard to believe this is his first time as a leading man. He handles the role with astounding proficiency. It is impossibly not to cheer for Captain Blood, and the script provides Flynn ample opportunity to deliver stirring speeches about freedom and tyranny, punctuated by scenes of guys firing muskets and cannons and swinging from the rigging of giant sailing ships. Flynn handles his stirring speeches with the same aplomb as he does the action scenes. He is the very definition of roguish charm, and he is assisted by a series of perfect foils, which include the thoroughly loathsome Colonel Bishop and the shifty French pirate Levasseur (played brilliantly by Basil Rathbone). Although it happened somewhat by chance, it seems that, in the end, Captain Blood was constructed purely to turn Errol Flynn into the dashing, swashbuckling heartthrob he became. Recognizing the chance that has fallen into his lap, Flynn does not disappoint.
#1 by Blake Matthews on April 6, 2008 - 8:45 pm
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After so many HK action films, I think I need to branch out a bit. I’ve done enough peplum. I’ve had my fair share of American martial arts films. How are the Douglas Fairbanks swashbucklers? Any older movies that deal with hand-to-hand combat, street fighting, and or fencing swordplay that you all could recommend (besides this one, of course)?
#2 by Ed on April 6, 2008 - 9:14 pm
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Nice work, Keith. I had a great aunt who was a pretty huge Flynn fan.
#3 by Joshua on April 7, 2008 - 4:40 am
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I’ve seen Captain Blood. I have not, however, seen “a Filipino superhero film in which a woman in a silver space bikini fights a vampire.” Any chance that you’d share the title with us/me?
#4 by El Santo on April 7, 2008 - 7:27 am
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It’s got to be one of the Darna movies. There were, like, twenty of them made over the course of about as many years, featuring at least four different actresses in the title role. I’ve never seen any of them, but what I’ve read makes them sound kind of like that Mexican Batwoman flick, only not nearly as sane.
#5 by rjschwarz on April 7, 2008 - 12:09 pm
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Saw Captain Blood on the big screen in some art house theater and it was amazing to see how jokes that seemed a bit stale worked on the audience so many decades after the initial release.
#6 by KeithA on April 7, 2008 - 12:15 pm
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Joshua: El Santo is right. I was referring to Darna films, or more specifically, the posters for Darna films, as I’ve never had the chance to see one.
RJ: Captain Blood‘s comedy works because it’s fairly understated. The two comic relief guys are the lazy dude and the dude who quotes the Bible, and both are used very sparingly. They never dominate any scene or get a whole scene to themselves. Even if their quips don’t work for a viewer, they are delivered in such tiny bursts that it doesn’t affect the over-all film.
The Searchers, by contrast…
#7 by El Santo on April 7, 2008 - 12:37 pm
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Speaking of Michael Curtiz (as you were in your review), have you ever seen Svengali? It’s probably the most imaginatively handled American horror movie of 1931, and I think the flair Curtiz displayed in it for circumventing the limitations of early sound-recording technology might help answer the question of why Warner would have trusted him to reinvigorate the pirate movie, even under the handicap of two “stars” whom nobody had ever heard of.
#8 by KeithA on April 7, 2008 - 12:44 pm
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Svengali is on my rental list. Never seen it.
#9 by rjschwarz on April 7, 2008 - 4:37 pm
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The bit that got the big laugh was the end reveal that Blood was the governor. The house was busting up, and it was pretty well telegraphed and not all that funny. It just goes to show the emotional manipulation was subtle and very effective. THat was the perfect capper to the movie, however corny it might seem (to me).