Errol Flynn, Michael Curtiz, Olivia de Havilland and Basil Rathbone.... I wouldn't blame you if you thought of The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) just about now... but this was the exact recipe for Captain Blood a few years earlier as well.

Errol's first lead, and one of Olivia's first roles on her fresh seven year contract. In the hands of Curtiz, Warner Bros got a legendary tale of adventure. This kind of story doesn't get much better than this, if ever they did.

With natural flow and an excellently paced progression, we're told the story of Peter Blood. Entertaining all the way, but there's also more than enough of a story to rightfully claim status as an early masterpiece of the genre.

Flynn, de Havilland, Rathbone, Kibbee and the rest are excellent, and Curtiz directs action-scenes as well as emotional ones. Two hours fly by in enjoyable fashion.

Flynn at his swashbuckling best in this grand high seas adventure.

Great movie. Errol Flynn is simply fabulous.

This is one of the great swashbucklers. Errol Flynn gives a typically energetic performance as blood but the real stars of any swashbuckler are the action set-pieces and they truly shine here. The final ship-to-ship confrontation with the French is particularly thrilling and effects hold up quite well. The only slight flaw here is the lack of a strong villain presence; King James, Governor Bishop, and a French pirate each serve as an antagonist at various points, but none of them really dominates as an opposing force here and only one is directly dispatched by Blood himself. Still, everything else works so well here that this doesn't hurt the film much at all.

68 out of 100
Very very fun in a uniquely classic hollywood way (although more contemporary examples would be Raiders of the Lost Act, Back to the Future and the like). In which it delivers a smorgasbord of action, adventure, romance, comedy, and all the other requisites for old Hollywood movie magic. Errol Flynn is a very charming lead and he gayly embodies the adventure hero archtype, being as witty and noble as can be while also being slyly manipulative and a bit of a cad when the time calls for it. It's maybe a bit too episodic for my taste, especially once Flynn goes to Captain Blood from Dr./Slave Blood. The movies still amusing but it kind of feels lost without an immediate goal (the immediate goal of the first half is escaping slavery). Not as strong as Robin Hood, but it immediately builds the screen presence of natural leading man Flynn.

While I've seen it praised for clever budgeting (the sea battles cross cut between old silent film footage and tre obvious sound stage setups), Captain Blood is wishy-washy, coating itself in the ideals of its main character (Errol Flynn in dashing/annoying mode), a doctor stolen as a slave while on a goodwill mission and "forced" into piracy; He's so full of entitlement, his puffy shirt is practically bursting. Since Flynn can't pull of a character arc, the love story seems miles outside the realm of plausibility; Curtiz saves the film quite a few times (Blood's office and a courtroom scene flirt with Expressionist Sets, sword fights are staged with definite care and panache), but Captain Blood is weighted down, hardcore, by its obvious profit-mongering. (My bias, too, is that I love the idea of a great pirate film and seldom see one untainted by its own agenda; See also: Pirates of the Caribbean).

Errol Flynn became an instant star thanks to this gripping swashbuckler, which is a little light on action, but riveting entertainment regardless. He plays an Irish doctor, based in England, who is sold into slavery after tending to an injured revolutionary, only to wind up as a (chivalrous) pirate. Along the way, he spars with a French buccaneer (Basil Rathbone), a sadistic British plantation owner (Lionel Atwill), and the latter's sweet, sassy, big-eyed niece (Olivia de Havilland) - who comes in and out of his life, and not always in peace. The script is rich and flavourful - if sometimes damaged by excessive exposition - Curtiz's expressionistic direction is a treat (despite some dodgy painted backdrops) and, when the action finally arrives, it's nicely staged. Flynn may lack the innate, instinctive athleticism of his swashbuckling predecessor, Douglas Fairbanks, but he's ideally cast as the dashing, noble and never-knowingly-modest hero, and he plays the glorious pay-off to perfection.

Couldn't help thinking of this in terms of Gladiator: The doctor who became a slave. The slave who became a pirate. The pirate who became a governor. Despite that, I found the movie really long and boring.