Captain Blood (1935)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Menu Audio Featurette-Newsreel Featurette-All American Drawback Featurette-Billboard Frolics Featurette-Making Of-A Swashbuckler is Born Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1935
Running Time	114:14
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (84:10)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Michael Curtiz
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Errol Flynn Olivia De Havilland Lionel Atwill Basil Rathbone Ross Alexander Guy Kibbee Henry Stephenson Robert Barrat Hobart Cavanaugh Donald Meek Jessie Ralph Forrester Harvey Frank McGlynn Sr.
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Erich Wolfgang Korngold

"It's out of favour with you I seem to be, my vinegary virgin". Dr. Peter Blood to his elderly housemaid.

    It is lines like the one above, spoken with a twinkle in his eyes and a 'come on, baby, you know you want it' lilt to his voice that this film welcomes Errol Flynn to his first major role, leading a big studio picture. In 1935, when this film was made, Flynn was a nobody from Tasmania who had recently been brought across to the US from England. Then he got a huge break, to be given the role (despite much competition) of Dr. Peter Blood in this Michael Curtiz directed actioner made for Warner Brothers. Considering his relative youth and unknown status, his performance here is stunning and made him a major star overnight. At the time, the major studios virtually never used unknown actors to play leads in movies but here they chose Flynn and also Olivia De Haviland. This film was also her first major lead role and they work very well together.

    Captain Blood tells the story of a former soldier/adventurer, Peter Blood (Flynn) who has settled down to life as a doctor in England. It is 1685 and civil war is raging as supporters of the Duke of Monmouth try to usurp the crown from James II. When a friend of Blood's gets injured supporting the Duke, he is summoned to treat his wounds and winds up being arrested for treason along with his friend. Instead of the usual hanging, the King decides to send some of the rebels to the West Indies to be sold as slaves, including Blood. They arrive on an island known as Port Royal. Many are bought by a cruel location plantation owner, Colonel Bishop (Lionel Atwill), however, he refuses to buy Blood because of his impertinence. Attracted to him, Bishop's niece, Arabella (Olivia De Haviland) buys him instead and he ends up on her uncle's plantation with many of the rebels. While surviving the cruelties of life on the plantation he gains more privileges by treating the Governor's gout successfully and thus gets more freedom to roam the island. He hatches a plan to escape, which he puts into action with a number of the slaves during an attack on Port Royal by a Spanish war ship. They capture the ship and decide to become pirates.

    As you would expect, this is a classic Hollywood actioner, directed by one of the greatest director's of the era, the man also responsible for films like Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood (also with Flynn). Flynn's nemesis in Robin Hood, Basil Rathbone also turns up later in the film as another pirate captain, Levasseur. The film was in the running for five 1936 Oscars (without winning one) including Best Picture, Best Score, Best Director, Best Sound and Best Writing. This is a rousing adventure which still holds up as entertainment today. My four year old even enjoyed it (although I can't say he watched every minute). Many swashbucklers since have used some of the ideas in this film and the duel between Blood and Levasseur is a classic. The action climax involving a sea battle is excellently done. The wonderful score by future Oscar winner Erich Wolfgang Korngold is a classic.

    Incidentally, this is the full version of this film running 114 minutes in PAL, not the reissued shorter version.

    Any lover of classic Hollywood action films will love this one.

Video

    The feature is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, non 16x9 enhanced, which is close to the original aspect ratio of 1.37:1.

    The picture was reasonably clear and sharp with no evidence of low level noise. The sharpness was good for a film of this vintage, although it was affected a little by bleeding from whites such as at 51:08 and 73:10. Shadow detail was also quite good for a film of this vintage.

    There was quite good contrast between the blacks, greys and whites.

    Artefacts were plentiful including quite a bit of telecine wobble, lots of spots, lines & splodges (especially bad at 62:35, 64:25 and 75:12), some grainy sequences (e.g. 104:08), some jumps (19:52) and a couple of reel change markers. None of these were enough to make the film difficult to watch but are obviously a result of print damage over the years.

    There are subtitles in English, English for the Hearing Impaired, Italian, Italian for the Hearing Impaired, French, Dutch & Arabic. They were clear and easy to read.

    The layer change occurs at 84:10 and is not noticeable.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is quite good considering the age of the film.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 1.0 mono soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s and the same in Italian.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The wonderful score of this film by Erich Wolfgang Korngold sounds pretty good, with some minimal distortion.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is garishly coloured and 16x9 enhanced, unlike anything else on this disc. It is, however, quite functional.

Warner Night at the Movies

    This section allows the audience to recreate what a night at the cinema in 1935 would have been like and includes the sort of featurettes which would have been shown prior to the film. The specific items are:

• Newsreel (2:44) - A 1935 newsreel including information about the trail of the Lindbergh kidnapper and other stories.
• All American Drawback (11:09) - A live action 'comedy' short about a ventriloquist's dummy who plays college football.
• Billboard Frolics (6:35) - A fun Merrie Melodies episode which features billboards coming to life, dancing and singing.

Captain Blood : A Swashbuckler is Born (23:02)

    This is a 2005 making-of featurette including interviews with various film historians. It covers the production code and its effect on movie subject matter, the novel, casting, how Flynn got the role, Michael Curtiz, the music, shooting and the success of the film. Better than average.

Theatrical Trailer (3:23)

    Action from the film with amusing (and not necessarily factual) captions across the picture.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• The full Warner Night at the Movies section which includes an intro by Leonard Maltin, an extra trailer for another movie of the time and an additional musical short.
• Lux Theater Radio Production with Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Basil Rathbone
   

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• Nothing

    Region 1 is the better choice here.

    The video quality is reasonable.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extras are worthwhile.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall