CAPTAIN PIRATE

US, 1952, 85 minutes, Colour.
Louis Hayward, Patricia Medina, John Sutton.
Directed by Ralph Murphy.

Captain Pirate is yet another Captain Blood story. Captain Blood was made popular in the 1935 epic with Errol Flynn. Louis Hayward took on the role in The Fortunes of Captain Blood, directed by Gordon Douglas, (scenes of which are inserted in this film by way of flashback). This film is based on Sabatini's novel Captain Blood Returns. In fact, it covers the same kind of material as in the original. The focus is on Captain Blood, Dr Peter Blood, the good man who is caught up by circumstances and becomes a successful pirate. He is pardoned by the British. In the West Indies, people don his clothes and conduct raids - a league of pirates in
the Caribbean with greedy officials.

There are the usual action sequences, many sword fights, the siege of a town, the sinking of ships. Louis Hayward is quite smooth as Captain Blood both in heroics and in romance. Patricia Medina is Isabella. There is a sinister supporting cast of English villains, French pirates, swaggering and blustering types of the Spanish Main. There is also Captain Blood's loyal crew led by the faithful Scottish Angus.

The film ends with a siege and the heroics of the Spanish Governor. All in all, nothing new in pirate films - but entertaining of its modest kind.