La fortuna del capitán Blood

I was in love with Louis Hayward and there is no more ardent love than a seven year old for a Pirate. I saw every film with Louis Hayward that came to the local cinema and I imagined I was the heroine of course! We had American friends and they had a home cinema and I saw this film and thought it was wonderful.

53 years later, what would I think - I hope it would transport me back over the years when the handsome Louis Hayward would be as dashing and romantic as he was when I first saw him. Good swashbuckling adventure. Must have made an impression when I remember it after 53 years.

I know Errol Flynn was the original "Peter Blood" in talking movies but Louis Hayward was the actor whom I saw in the 1950's in glorious colour. Yes, the colours in those movies in the 1950's were wonderful breathtaking after so many black and white movies.

Gordon Douglas at the time was redoing Erroll Flynn's adventures movies :for instance "rogues of Sherwood" showed Robin Hood's son (!)battling against his wicked uncle ;Hayward was sluggish but Mc Ready was delightful as the villain.

Another character portrayed by Flynn (gloriously) :another Hayward /McReady pairing and another battle.Six men from captain Blood's crew have been sold as slaves and they have got to dive for pearls in waters infested with sharks (too bad,those scenes are not shown;it would have added some suspense to a story which is terribly in need of it) The story is barely entertaining ,compared to the great Blood of Flynn and De Havilland (replaced by Patricia Medina who tries her best but who is not Olivia )

I'm writing this in response to the plea for a review; if anyone has seen it more recently, please chime in. I saw this a decade or two ago on TV, and remember rather liking it, but being disappointed that it didn't follow Sabatini's book more closely. It wasn't quite as weak as I'd expected from a sequel, and Louis Hayward wasn't as weak as I'd expect from a replacement for Errol Flynn. All in all, a reasonably good standard-issue pirate movie; sorry I can't be more definite than that. There was also a sequel to the sequel, based on Sabatini's _Captain Blood Returns_, entitled for some reason _Captain Pirate_, which I remember as being, surprisingly, somewhat better than this one.

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.

Mostly landlocked follow up to the Errol Flynn movie and based on another novel in the series concerns Louis Hayward trying to rescue a number of his crew who have been captured by an evil governor and forced into slavery as pearl divers. Most of the film has Hayward disguised as a fruit merchant attempting to get information that will help him free his men...while flirting with several women and fighting off bad men.

A mindless swashbuckler this is perfect Sunday afternoon fare, far from taxing it will simply put you into a place far away from all your troubles.

7 out of 10