Fortunes of Captain Blood (1950)

Powerful

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Despite the ending of the prior(1936) Warner film "Captain Blood", we find the Captain(Louis Hayward) has resumed his piratical ways, except that now he only attacks Spanish ships, leaving British ships alone. Most of the action supposedly occurs on or around the important island of La Hacha, governed by the Marquis de Roconte(George Macready). He keeps a gang of slaves busy diving for pearls, which the island is famous for. Coming upon this island, Blood sends a party ashore to get provisions. But they are surprised by a gang lead by the slave trader George Fairfax,(Lowell Gilmore) and sold to the Marquis. But the Marquis also wants to capture Blood, to win the 50,000 pieces of eight offered by King Charles II of Spain)Curt Bois).......Blood devises a plan of disguise as a fruit peddler, in the main town, across the island ,to hopefully find his way into the dungeon where his men are kept. He makes the acquaintance of the Marquis's ethereal niece, Isabolita(Patricia Medina), who is plotting with George Fairfax to leave the island for Spain, as she fins the island too boring. Blood also meets the cute, very flirtaceous, tavern wench: Pepita(Diana Drake). Fortunately, he encounters her various times during the film. For me, she is the best thing about this film! She also is the girlfriend of Carmilla: overseer of the slaves. In this capacity, she is useful to Blood toward freeing his men, which happens in an unlikely swordfight with the dungeon guards......Blood eventually returns to his ship with his freed crew. But his ship is soon fired upon by the Marquis's bigger warship, and rendered helpless. By some unbelievable sneaky maneuvering Blood and his crew abandon their ship, go to shore briefly, then head for the Marquis's ship, after the Marquis and some crew leave his ship for the crippled ship, believing Blood is still there.(This should have taken place at night, to make it more believable). Blood then finishes off his ship with some cannot fire, the Marquis escaping injury. The Marquis is allowed to come aboard his ship with a few men. He agrees to release the other slaves in exchange for his life. Later, the wench Pepita and the lady Isabelita come aboard separately, to kiss Blood goodbye, as he is about to sail for other parts of the Caribbean, with his new superior ship.......Note that , historically, La Hacha wasn't an island, but rather a port city on the Columbian coast. Like the fictional island, it was famous for its many high quality pearls.......See this B&W film at YouTube.

Not much is left of the zesty 1935 original in this sequel to "Captain Blood." Instead of Errol Flynn as the handsome, graceful, and athletic doctor-turned-pirate, we have chubby, slope-shouldered, and slow Louis Hayward in an unbecoming wig.I missed Flynn. I missed his dash, his devil-may-care spirit, his wry wisecracks, his carefree grin, his willingness to do anything for a buck. Louis Hayward has a more impressive voice than Flynn, and his ability to act may be about at the same level, but it takes more than that to be an effective protagonist in a swashbuckler. Pirates leap from ship to ship, and they swing on lines. They don't just mope around reciting their lines.Hayward is still Peter Blood, bachelor of medicine and master of swordplay, as we are told by one of the heavies at the beginning. But just as the history is about to involve the lovely Olivia De Havilland, the ruler of La Hotcha or whatever the island is called, interrupts and Arabella Bishop disappears from the narrative.There are some familiar elements -- the ship's crew imprisoned, Captain Blood disguised as a fruit peddler -- but this isn't a remake or even, really, a sequel. In the original, Peter Blood's being a doctor made a difference in the plot. Not here.It's a tired script, directed by Gordon Douglas, an unpretentious hack. It's studio bound and there is some swordplay -- not very energetic -- and nice support from George Macready, always a serviceable villain, and from Patricia Medina, she of the anthracite irises.But, overall -- ho hum.

A Columbia Pictures' release, "The Fortunes of Captain Blood" (1950) neither boasts the epic scale nor the lavish quality that Warner Brothers' poured into its classic 1935 Errol Flynn original with Erich Wolfgang Korngold's exhilarating orchestral score. Essentially, this thoroughly routine black and white swashbuckler confines itself largely to intrigue on land rather than adventure on the high seas. The budgetary constraints no doubt forced veteran director Gordon Douglas to stage only two less than spectacular sea battles that take place at the outset and during the finale. These lackluster clashes occur with the opposing ships miles apart rather than hull to hull. You won't see any pirates with cutlasses clenched in their scrofulous teeth as they swing from the rigging of their ship to board the enemy vessel.The pompous Hispanic monarch, King Charles II (Kurt Bois of "The Desert Song"),warns the Marquis de Riconete (George Macready of "Knock On Any Door")that unless he captures lawless Irish buccaneer Captain Blood (Louis Hayward of "Captain Pirate"), the king will strip him of all his wealth and position. Charles II also places a bounty of 50-thousand pieces of eight on Blood's head. Blood has has been devastating Spanish galleons in the West Indies. Blood and his ship the Avenger lie off the island of La Hacha, the most important Spanish possession in the West Indies. They are awaiting a signal from the mainland to pick up supplies and ammunition from a trusted merchant. Unfortunately, it's a trap, and the Marquis bags a boatload of Blood's men. Although we never see them once they wind up behind bars, we learn from the expository dialogue in the loquacious screenplay by Frank Burt of "Barbary Pirate," Michael Hogan of "Tall in the Saddle," and Robert Libott of "Captain Pirate," that these poor souls are forced to dive for pearls in shark-infested waters with slim chances of survival. Captain Blood refuses to tolerate this unhappy situation. He remembers his own days as a prisoner and he ventures ashore against the advice of his second-in-command to free his men. Masquerading as a harmless fruit peddler, Senor Morales, so that he can have open access to the town, he sets out to rescue his enslaved sailors. Along the way, he encounters a hot-blooded little tomato, Pepita Maria Rosados (Dona Drake of "Road to Morocco"),who takes a shine to him. Pepita's boyfriend is the Prison Overseer, Carmilio (Alfonso Bedoya of "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," who uttered the famous line of dialogue from the Humphrey Bogart classic: "We don't need no stinkin' badges!")."The Fortunes of Captain Blood" contains few surprises or revelations during its trim 90 running time. A clean-shaven Louis Hayward makes an adequate Captain Blood, but he sorely lacks the charisma of an Errol Flynn. Consequently, Hayward seems somewhat wooden in the role. In his defense, Hayward doesn't perform any feats of valor like Flynn did because the scenarists give him nothing in the way of grandstanding heroics. On the other hand, George Macready doesn't make your blood boil as the villainous Marquis. As the Marquis' relative Isabelita Sotomayor, beautiful Patricia Medina of "Mr. Arkadin" spends more time off-screen than on-screen. Eventually, Captain Blood gets around to wooing Isabelita, but he devotes more time to spunky Pepita so he can befriend Carmilio and orchestrate the release of his men. However, since there is no suspense, Blood has few close calls with his adversaries and rarely appears in jeopardy. The miniature ships look fine, but the back projection aboard the ships when the heroes and villains weight anchor is obvious. The sword fighting choreography is strictly second-rate with the combatants never moving far from where the fight started. The last scene before the final ship battle when Blood and his men switch ships and capture a Spanish warship anticipates the future cinematic antics of Captain Jack Sparrow against the British.

As everyone remembers in the classic Errol Flynn version of Captain Blood, he whipped his fellow pirate Basil Rathbone in a dual on the dunes, he took Lionel Atwill's place as royal governor of Jamaica after the House of Orange threw out the House of Stuart in The Glorious Revolution and married Atwill's niece Olivia DeHavilland to live happily ever after. I think it was understood there'd be no more pirating under William and Mary.Yet here we have Captain Blood, this time played by Louis Hayward, back at his old trade again. I guess politics must have bored him, but what happened to Olivia because Hayward's got a couple of girls panting after him in this story.The women are the Spanish viceroy's niece Patricia Medina and an innkeeper's niece, Dona Drake. It seems as though several of Blood's crew were betrayed on a shopping trip for supplies and sold into slavery. Doing the selling was George MacReady who's been charged by the King of Spain to bring in Captain Blood dead or alive. He's also got a lustful gleam in his eye for Patrica Medina and who could blame the old reprobate.Hayward's mission is to free his captive crew members and he has to involve himself with a whole lot of intrigue, political and romantic. In a way he really acts like a heel towards Drake and it does kind of lessen audience sympathy for him.Harry Cohn at Columbia did not want to spend as much money as Jack Warner did on his version and it shows. Hayward is capable enough as Peter Blood, but I kind of like MacReady in this film, he really does dominate it whenever he's on screen. Alfonso Bedoya is also good as the slave overseer.When all's said and done Fortunes of Captain Blood just doesn't measure up to what made Errol Flynn a star.