Aventuras do Capitão Blood

The previous poster is mistaken if she remembers seeing Hayward in glorious color--this is a black and white movie---and a less glorious B&W than that supplied Warner Brothers' Captain Blood by Ernest Haller and Hal Mohr. In fact, Fortunes often looks like a TV production--and not just because of the poor model work. What isn't typical of a TV movie is the surprising amount of violence--Blood's crew is bludgeoned mercilessly when they are captured, whipped by the Marquis and his overseers, and forced to listen to Alfonso Bedoya's idiosyncratic line readings.

I remember seeing Louis Hayward in The Black Arrow when I was about 10, and thinking that movie a great swashbuckler. Yet when I read the posts about it on IMDb, I wonder if my memory is playing tricks on me as well. Watching a bit of Fortunes on TCM, I rather suspect it is--this movie is pretty tepid, with the chief excellence being Hayward's performance, even though he gets no help from the script or director.

FORTUNES OF CAPTAIN BLOOD never rises above being a pedestrian take on the Captain Blood legend originated by Rafael Sabatini in his immortal pirate tale, CAPTAIN BLOOD.

This is strictly secondary stuff, with LOUIS HAYWARD as the doctor turned pirate on the high seas. He's competent in the swashbuckling role rather than charismatic--and there lies the difference between him and Flynn. At times, he seems almost bored with his role.

DONA DRAKE does nicely enough as a peasant girl who flirts with Captain Blood (while he's assuming the name of Pedro), and PATRICIA MEDINA is equally at home in her role as a headstrong aristocratic lady. LOWELL GILMORE and GEORGE MACREADY are likewise competent as the rather villainous men interested only in pearls and wealth--but the story and its characters barely rise above the routine in a lifeless pirate tale.

ALFONSO BEDOYA at least furnishes a bit of sly humor as the prison overseer hoodwinked by Captain Blood (he was the man with the famous line about "We don't need no stinkin' badges" from TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE).

But the saga only really comes to life during the last half-hour, and then it's standard pirate swordplay and cannon fire until the predictable happy ending finds Captain Blood and the aristocratic lady sharing a kiss before the fadeout.

Summing up: Standard pirate tale with only occasional flashes of lively swordplay. As for Hayward, he was much better as "The Man in the Iron Mask".

I think it's fair to say that Louis Hayward was just a little bit past his best when he made this rather dry pirate adventure. He picks up the character from Errol Flynn (which maybe doesn't help either) as "Capt. Blood" and works on a complicated plan to go into the town incognito, and rescue some of his crew captured by the wicked "Marquis" (George Macready) now used to fish for pearls - quite a dangerous activity in the shark-infested waters. Along the way, he falls for the slightly aloof "Isabelita" (Patricia Medina) who is the daughter of his antagonist and the apple of the eye of the ambitious "Fairfax" (Lowell Gilmore). What's really missing here - save for, maybe the last ten minutes, is action. For an action film it's positively stolid. Hayward tries hard to hold it together and Macready was ever a good baddie but nobody is firing at all well here as they have to plod through the interminable dialogue with just nowhere near enough swash, buckle or swinging from the yardarm. This is one of my favourite genres and though it's not the best, it's still watchable enough. You'll never remember it, though.

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.

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