When members of his crew are captured by George Fairfax (Lowell Gilmore) and sold as slaves to Marquis de Riconete (George Macready), pirate captain Peter Blood (Louis Hayward) comes to shore to free them. Masquerading as a fruit peddler, Blood wins over the local bar girl (Dona Drake) and the Marquis’s niece (Patricia Medina), and engages in the expected swashing and buckling.
It’s difficult to conceive that at one time, Fortunes of Captain Blood was released to theaters. It never feels like a film. It has the direction, camerawork, sets, score, acting, and breadth of a mid-level 1960s TV series. Little time is spent at sea, but a great deal is spent in a tavern that no one would mistake for anything but a stage. The cast is small, with few soldiers and fewer pirates. As the brief credits appeared, I could easily imagine a voiceover announcing “Next week, on The Adventures of Peter Blood and Friends, Peter runs afoul of plotting Spaniards, with special guest star, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.”
Louis Hayward has the unenviable task of taking over a role made famous by Errol Flynn in the 1935 classic, Captain Blood. For over a decade, Hayward was a B-movie, Swashbuckling hero, appearing in The Son of Monte Cristo (1940), The Return of Monte Cristo (1946), Pirates of Capri (1949), Lady in the Iron Mask (1952), and Captain Pirate (1952). His status is surprising since he lacked the needed look, build, and voice. He had a nice touch with comedy, but was out of place in an adventure piece. Still, Hayward is the closest thing Fortunes of Captain Blood has to charisma.
While there is sufficient swordplay to earn its Swashbuckling label, Fortunes of Captain Blood is primarily a chatting movie. Blood engages in relaxed conversations with almost everyone he runs into. There is little drama and never a feeling that anything is at stake. He does stop talking long enough to stab a guard but then he’s back at it again.
Patricia Medina (who appeared in four films with Hayward, including this flick’s sequel, Captain Pirate, where she played a different character) is quite pretty as the main romantic interest. Unfortunately, there is almost no romance, giving Medina little to do and making it difficult to remember her five minutes after the film is over. Dona Drake, best known as the girl Bob Hope gets in Road to Morocco, is more memorable, but then her role as the promiscuous serving wench out to make a buck is more substantial.
Fortunes of Captain Blood isn’t a film anyone should feel compelled to seek out. If you are fan of any film where two men whack each other with swords, or you are a pirate movie completist, you are likely to stay awake for this mild action yarn.