Captain Blood. 1935. USA. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Screenplay by Casey Robinson, from the novel by Rafael Sabatini. With Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Lionel Atwill, Ross Alexander. 35mm. 119 min.
Errol Flynn’s first film for Michael Curtiz was the Perry Mason mystery The Case of the Curious Bride, in which the young Australian recruit played a corpse. Flynn had better luck with their second collaboration, a grand swashbuckler in the silent-film tradition of Douglas Fairbanks that immediately established him, along with his only slightly more experienced costar Olivia de Havilland, among the most popular performers of the day. As an Irish physician sold into slavery in Jamaica for his opposition to James II, Flynn is a surprisingly slight, almost boyish figure; it’s not his physical prowess or political ardor that makes him a charismatic pirate captain, but his sense of fun. He’s the symbolic American here, facing down various representatives of European elitist disdain—most memorably Basil Rathbone as the cruel French pirate Levasseur and Lionel Atwill as the corrupt colonial governor.