There’s little swash and even less buckle in this seafarin’ saga of an unjustly imprisoned shipwrecked captain who escapes to become an infamous pirate set on revenge against the villainous viceroy who locked him up. And if that plot sounds like CAPTAIN BLOOD/’35 (first in the Flynn/de Havilland/ Curtiz/Korngold series), it’s likely no coincidence. If only they’d also stolen some of the derring-do, sentiment & technique that made the Warners pics so smart & memorable. (Unexpectedly emotional, too.) Paul Henreid’s not a bad idea as a merry, heroic buccaneer (though he hasn’t the chest for it), and neither is Walter Slezak as a dastardly villain (sucking the life out of various tropical fruits), but director Frank Borzage, a specialist in romantic fatalism back to the silent era, is working well out of his fach, unable to engage his cast or put much brio into things. It all feels flat: staging, fights, special effects, miniatures, musical score. And while it’s fun to see how different studios handled familiar technical challenges (the ships & background cycloramas more toy-like @ RKO then at 20th/Fox or Warners), and its TechniColor print ravishingly well-preserved (often the case with less popular titles), only Maureen O’Hara as the bartered bride & John Emery as a turncoat pirate know how to play this particular game.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: As mentioned, stick to CAPTAIN BLOOD, freer/less codified than later/smoother Flynn vehicles (and all the better for it). OR: for Maureen O’Hara in one of these things, there’s the reasonably swashbuckling THE BLACK SWAN/’42 with Tyrone Power.
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