--- title: "Captain Blood" year: 1935 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/captain-blood" fi1m_score: 80 critics_score: 78 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-09-19T22:50:43.727473+00:00" updated: "2026-09-19T22:51:06.277409+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Captain Blood (1935) Directed by Michael Curtiz · 1h 59m · MPA NR · Adventure **Fi1m score: 80** · Critics 78 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* Sold at auction in one reel, captain of a Spanish galleon two reels later; Flynn never once looks surprised > Curtiz’s pirate film is stagey and talky for its first forty minutes, and then Flynn gets a ship, a sword and Korngold’s orchestra and becomes the star every later swashbuckler wanted. Creaky at the edges, thin in the crew; still the real thing. ## Synopsis England, 1685. Peter Blood (Errol Flynn), an Irish physician, is called from his bed to treat a man wounded fighting for the Duke of Monmouth. For that he is arrested, tried for treason and sentenced with the other rebels to be sold into slavery in the West Indies. At Port Royal, Jamaica, he is bought at auction by Arabella Bishop (Olivia de Havilland), niece of the plantation owner Colonel Bishop (Lionel Atwill), who takes an instant dislike to his tongue. Blood’s success with the governor’s gout earns him the run of the town, and he uses it to plot an escape with fellow slaves Jeremy Pitt (Ross Alexander), Hagthorpe (Guy Kibbee) and Wolverstone (Robert Barrat), bribing the shipwright Honesty Nutall (Forrester Harvey) to buy them a boat. ## Review Michael Curtiz’s film of Rafael Sabatini’s novel is the one that made Errol Flynn, and you can watch it happen. He is billed first, in his first leading role, and for the opening forty minutes the film does not quite know what it has. Then it puts him on the deck of a captured Spanish galleon, gives him a captain’s coat and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s brass section, and from that moment it is the picture later pirate films have been measured against. It is stagey and talky and nearly two hours long, and we enjoyed nearly all of it. The slow part comes first. Casey Robinson’s screenplay has a rebellion, a treason trial, a sea voyage and a slave market to get through, and it does most of it in speeches. Lionel Atwill’s Colonel Bishop is a plantation owner of the sneering school, and the business of Blood treating the governor’s gout while the rival doctors (Hobart Cavanaugh, Donald Meek) fume is played for the back row. What keeps it alive is Flynn’s cheek. In the dock, condemned, he looks the judge over and informs him that he is a dying man. We grinned at him against our better judgement, and kept grinning. The film turns when the Spanish raid Port Royal and the slaves row out and take the raiders’ ship. Curtiz shoots the galleon low and wide from the deck, rigging filling the top of the frame, and Korngold lets the orchestra go. There is a scene on the quarterdeck where Blood reads the articles his new crew will sail under and the men roar each one back, the music rising under them, and we sat up in our seats. It is corn of the purest kind, and we did not care. Olivia de Havilland’s Arabella buys Blood at auction to spite her uncle and spends the rest of the film pretending not to have noticed him. It is a thin part, a young woman who is cross and then is not, and de Havilland gives it more spirit than it was written with. The two are good at the quarrel that is really a flirtation: she calls him a rogue, he reminds her she owns him, and Curtiz lets them stand a little too close while they say it. Milo Anderson dresses her in pale silk and him first in rags, then in more lace than any privateer needs. Basil Rathbone arrives an hour in as Levasseur, a French pirate proposing a partnership, and the film gets a villain worth the name. Rathbone plays him quiet and amused, which after an hour of Atwill’s shouting is a relief. He and Flynn cross swords on a beach, Ernest Haller and Hal Mohr shooting them in the surf with the light coming off the water behind them, and George Amy cuts so that we see each exchange whole rather than a blur of close-ups. It lasts a few minutes and they are the best few minutes in the film. Rathbone, plainly the more practised fencer, makes Flynn look good, which is a gift. We will not say how it ends. The flaws are those of 1935 and of a script that will not stop explaining. Henry Stephenson’s Lord Willoughby turns up late with news from England and the film halts so he can deliver it. The crew, Ross Alexander’s Jeremy Pitt, Guy Kibbee’s Hagthorpe, Robert Barrat’s Wolverstone, are names on a muster roll more than men, each with a line or two and a hearty laugh. The closing sea battle is fought with models, and they look like models, bobbing in a tank while the guns go off and the smoke drifts the wrong way. At 119 minutes it could lose a reel of the first hour’s talk and nobody would notice. One critic at the time found it talky and overdressed and Flynn too gentle for the Caribbean. The first charge is fair; we have just made it. The second misses the point. Blood is a doctor who never wanted to be a soldier and does not want to be a pirate, and Flynn plays the reluctance as amusement, which is why he is charming rather than a brute. It is a PG. A child who can sit through a courtroom will get a sword fight for it. The talk you can doze through. You will wake for the brass. *Fi1m score 80, published 19 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like Captain Blood, and the praise clusters around Errol Flynn. Six of the seven reviews call the film a success, and nearly all of them credit Flynn’s first leading role for it: his swagger, his physicality, his ease with a joke. The notices from 1935 predict it will make stars of Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, and the later ones, writing with hindsight, agree that it did and single out the heat between the two of them. Michael Curtiz’s direction and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s symphonic score come up repeatedly as the other reasons the film still plays. The reservations are about pace and padding. Several critics find it talky, with too much exposition and supporting characters sketched rather than drawn, and one recent review admits it feels long and creaky now. The spread is narrow apart from a single outlier: The New Yorker, reviewing on release, finds it overdressed and thinks Flynn too gentle for the Caribbean brutalities. ### Reviews we read (7) - **The New York Times** (90/100, inferred): The review praises the visual beauty and fine, swaggering arrogance of the film version, noting that it recaptures the air of high romantic adventure essential to the tale, with Errol Flynn playing the genteel buccaneer to the hilt. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1935/12/27/archives/a-newcomer-named-errol-flynn-in-a-handsome-film-version-of-captain.html) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it a big, lavish swashbuckling spectacle that will establish Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland as stars. Director Michael Curtiz is praised for not sparing the horses in this saga of the Spanish main. [Read](https://variety.com/1934/film/reviews/captain-blood-1200411083/) - **Radio Times**, Tony Sloman (4/5): The critic calls it a marvellous swashbuckling adventure starring Errol Flynn as the doctor-turned-pirate Peter Blood under Michael Curtiz's direction. Flynn's devil-may-care screen presence makes the film important as his first leading role, even if it feels a little long and creaky today. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-zvcs74/captain-blood/) - **Slant Magazine**, Nick Schager (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the swashbuckler enjoyable thanks to Errol Flynn's star-making turn as the witty pirate Peter Blood, though it suffers from excessive exposition and underdeveloped supporting characters. The review singles out Flynn's buoyant physicality and charm for particular praise while noting the film's playful critique of British monarchy. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/captain-blood-4k-uhd-blu-ray-review-michael-curtiz/) - **The New Yorker**, John C. Mosher (40/100, inferred): The critic finds the film talky and rather overdressed, noting that it will not take the honors from Mutiny on the Bounty. Errol Flynn seems too gentle for the Caribbean brutalities. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1935/12/28/1935-12-28-057-tny-cards-000017536) - **Paste** (90/100, inferred): The critic calls Captain Blood a quintessential swashbuckler that hits all the high points of the pirate genre. They single out the palpable vitality and heat between Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, along with the majestic Oscar-nominated score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/pirates/best-pirate-movies) - **Den of Geek**, Tony Sokol (85/100, inferred): The critic praises Captain Blood as the definitive pirate movie and the film that made Errol Flynn a star. It highlights the first Flynn-de Havilland pairing, Basil Rathbone's role, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's pioneering symphonic score. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/michael-curtiz-best-movies-ranked/) ## Details - **Director:** Michael Curtiz - **Director:** Michael Curtiz - **Screenplay:** Casey Robinson - **Novel:** Rafael Sabatini - **Cinematography:** Ernest Haller, Hal Mohr - **Editor:** George Amy - **Music:** Erich Wolfgang Korngold - **Costume design:** Milo Anderson - **Producer:** Harry Joe Brown, Gordon Hollingshead - **Cast:** Errol Flynn as Dr. Peter Blood; Olivia de Havilland as Arabella Bishop; Lionel Atwill as Colonel Bishop; Basil Rathbone as Levasseur; Ross Alexander as Jeremy Pitt; Guy Kibbee as Hagthorpe; Henry Stephenson as Lord Willoughby; Robert Barrat as Wolverstone - **Runtime:** 1h 59m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 28 December 1935 - **Genres:** Adventure - **Budget:** $1 million ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-19.* Also available in: AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CZ, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, HR, IE, IT, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1936: Best Director (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Score, Adaptation or Treatment (nominated); Best Sound (nominated); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated) ## If you liked this - *The Black Pirate* (1926): Douglas Fairbanks doing the whole thing silent, in colour, and sliding down a sail on a knife - *The Sea Hawk* (1940): Curtiz and Flynn again, with a bigger ship and a Korngold score that never sits down - *The Crimson Pirate* (1952): Burt Lancaster treats the genre as a circus act, and the genre is delighted - *The Duellists* (1977): For anyone who wanted the sword fights taken seriously, and photographed like paintings - *Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World* (2003), Fi1m 86: The grown-up version: real weather, real wood, and a crew who are people — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/master-and-commander-the-far-side-of-the-world.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/captain-blood