Captin Blood
With a surname like
his, there were only three career paths for Peter Blood
and he took them all. First a soldier, then a doctor
and then - thanks to a treasonous act of compassion
- a pirate.
In seventeenth century
England, Irish Dr. Peter Blood is convicted of treason
against the King for aiding a wounded friend who had
participated in the Monmouth Rebellion. He is sent to
Jamaica, sold into slavery, and purchased by the beautiful
Arabella Bishop. Doctor Blood and his fellow slaves
escape, steal a Spanish ship and begin a life of piracy.
Based on the piratical
exploits of Sir Henry Morgan and Thomas Blood, Rafael
Sabatini's Captain Blood redefined the genre when it
was published in the early 1920s.
Captain Blood was an enormously popular work, and Sabatini
wrote two additional novels featuring Peter Blood: Captain
Blood Returns (1930) (retitled The Chronicles of Captain
Blood in the British publication) and The Fortunes of
Captain Blood (1936). Both of these books are episodic
tales of Blood's pirate career rather than true sequels.
(All the episodes are contained within the timeframe
of the original novel, although Sabatini mistakenly
dated one story "1690" despite the fact that Blood's
piratical career had been established as ending in 1689,
and two stories in Captain Blood Returns: "The War Indemnity"
and "Blood Money" may be viewed as continuations of
events that took place in the original novel.)
In 1935, First National Pictures and Warner Brothersthe
had the novel adapted for the silver screen. Directed
by Michael Curtiz, the film starred Errol Flynn, Olivia
de Havilland with Lionel Atwill and Basil Rathbone.
The movie launched Flynn's career and was the first
of eight feature films he made with co-star De Havilland.
In 1938, the pair would be re-united with Rathbone in
The Adventures of Robin Hood.
The film debuted in New York City in December 1935 in
time for the holiday season and Errol Flynn became an
overnight sensation. That distinction quickly spread
throughout the world as the film met with success broad.
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