Captain Blood

I love well-crafted films.

Being a film school graduate can be joyful or onerous. I don’t go to the movies anymore. Mostly, I watch television series where the three-act structure doesn’t make everything predictable and boring. I don’t enjoy spectacle without story.

I decided to watch Captain Blood. It took a while because I sleep 16 hours a day now.

Here is some background on this fantastic swashbuckler directed by the great Michael Curtiz.

Captain Blood information

I’m going to share some screen caps I took of the film. First, from the opening scenes, fascinated with Curtiz’s framing of shots (mise en scene).

Shadows play an important role in this film, as in most well-made b&w pictures. Dr. Blood is tending to an injured an who was fighting King James’ troops. The men on the left are coming to arrest him.

The trial of the “treasonous.” I love the foreground gate. The framing of each scene in this movie is fantastic.

The use of empty space for the trial. Where in the late 1600s England would you find this much emptiness?

Recounting the exposition.

The English slaves escape during the Spanish attack on Port Royal.

These scenes were shot at Laguna Beach, California. Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn.