weezeralfalfa
Intrigued as to the selection of the title for this mostly superior pirate adventure story. Perhaps it is meant to convey that several(4 to be exact) pirate captains, as well as the captain of a slaver, will play a significant role in this tale. John Sutton plays Evans, captain of the slaver, He is the chief villain, in blaming a recent attack on the Columbian city of Cartagena on Doctor Blood(Louis Hayward), former slave and scourge of the Caribbean, recently reformed into exercising his skill as a medical doctor. Evans' primary motive for getting rid of Blood seems to be to eliminate his chief rival for the hand of Dona Isabella, arrived from Spain. Sutton was an imposing, handsome, fellow with an aristocratic bearing and lingo. Although occasionally playing the romantic lead(as in "Hudson's Bay"), he was mostly type cast as an oily villain or 'the other man'. Evens' partner in his scheme was French pirate Coulevain, who reportedly claimed he was Blood, in his one recent raid, on Cartagena, where it was eventually deduced that he stole an especially valuable jewelry collection, featuring large high quality emeralds.(Columbia has most of the world's premier emerald deposits). Coulevain would eventually pay for his impersonation and theft...... On the way to Tortuga, Blood encountered the friendly pirate captain Tomas Velasquez , who had just come from Tortugo, where he acquired his latest mistress: Celeste(Genevieve Aumont), who makes a play for Blood while they are alone in the captain's cabin. Blood notices that she is wearing emerald earrings that fit the description of those stolen. Asked where she got them from, she refuses to give a straight answer. However, later, Tomas answers that she stole them from Pirate captain Easterling, while he was drunk and asleep. Easterling then becomes the prime suspect in the impersonation of Blood. According to Tomas, he is probably in Martinique, to which Blood sets sail. Incidentally, George Givot, who played Tomas , was easily the most charismatic character in the film, with his booming friendly voice and manner. Easterling enters the tavern where Blood is talking to Easterling's favorite mistress, Amanda((Malu Gatica). He's not pleased, but keeps quite. The next morning, Blood goes to her address to accompany her to his ship. However, he finds her murdered, and her expensive stolen emerald necklace missing. Blood soon has an altercation with Easterling and his aid, the Egyptian. Eventually, Easterling reveals that he obtained the necklace from the pirate captain Coulevain, whom he claims has a ship large enough to attack Cartagena alone, whereas he himself doesn't have such a ship. Easterling directs Blood to Santo Domingo as the likeliest place to find Coulevain. Upon arrival, Blood goes to Madame Duval's tavern, where he finds information about Coulevain. By trickery, Blood gets into Coulevain's room and sea chest, where he finds an emerald-studded tiara, similar to the one described as stolen. Blood and Coulevain independently head for the Panamanian port of Puerto Bello(Porto belo). Blood gets there first and, posing as the new military advisor to the new Viceroy there, has the cannons from his ship placed in front of the fort, aimed in a particular direction. Serendipitously, he meets Isabella, who is a prisoner there, for her involvement in a Blood takeover of Evan's ship, a while back.....When Coulevain attacks the fort at Porto belo, his ship gets stuck right where Blood planned, in the line of fire of his shore cannons, and his ship is pulverized. He claims he is Blood, thus confirming his guilt as the impersonator of Blood. Blood is pardoned of wrongdoing, as is Isabella......I found the story and characterizations superior to the previous related film, "The Fortunes of Captain Blood"(1950), which also starred Hayward and Medina, but was shot in B&W as opposed to the Technicolor of the present film. However, I did miss Dona Drake, as the extra-flirtaceous tavern wench Pepita. In the present film, Celeste, more or less her equivalent, wasn't nearly as enticing to me.
bkoganbing
Harry Cohn must have wanted to do Captain Pirate and it's predecessor Fortunes of Captain Blood very bad because he had to have shelved out some big bucks to Jack Warner for that footage he used in a flashback sequence in this film. Might have been interesting had he gotten Errol Flynn along with the movie.Not that Louis Hayward is a bad Captain Blood. Hayward definitely has the swashbuckling élan for the part. But he's up against a rather routine script that's concerned with a case of identity theft.Somewhere along the line Blood ditched the Olivia DeHavilland character from the Warner Brothers classic and in the Fortunes Of Captain Blood wooed and won the daughter of Spanish don, Patricia Medina. Now wedding bells are ringing, but when one of His Majesty's representatives, John Sutton, who also has a hankering for Pat brings news that Blood has led a raid on Cartagena and among other things stolen some valuable jewelry, it looks like Hayward is back to his old pirate ways.In fact that becomes something of a wish fulfillment for Sutton, because Hayward in order to prove his innocence has to round up his old crew and steal a ship, Sutton's ship to be precise, and roam the Caribbean in search of the impostor. During the search he uncovers some treason as well. Great Britain and Spain were allies at this time during the 1690s and the French would like nothing better than to tear this alliance apart. Hayward and Medina make a beautiful pair of hero and heroine. Hayward's Blood is not as dashing as Errol Flynn's, but he does make up for it with being very cunning. Still the results are rather predictable and if you haven't figured out who the bad guys are, you haven't seen too many pirate movies.
