Captain Blood - 1935

Robert Donat was cast in the title role, but didn't turn up at the start of shooting. Warner Brothers scrambled to find a replacement, asking Brian Aherne to take the role, but he refused. Warners decided to take a gamble on an unknown Australian named Errol Flynn.

No full-sized ships were used in the battle scenes. It was created by a combination of process shots, miniatures, and footage from the silent film, The Sea Hawk (1924), which was based on another Rafael Sabatini novel.

Because, Erich Wolfgang Korngold had only three weeks for scoring this picture, he used portions of two tone poems by Franz Liszt for some of the action scenes. However, he insisted on the screen credit "Musical Arrangements by" although still 90 % of the score was original.

In his biography, "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" Errol Flynn (an infamous prankster) states that he played many pranks on Olivia de Havilland. One of them was leaving a dead snake in her underwear, which she found when she went to put them on. After that she lived in terror of what prank he would pull on her next.

The Academy Awards that year allowed write-in votes. Based on write-ins alone, Michael Curtiz would have won the Oscar for best director, but on the night he lost to John Ford for his work on The Informer (1935). Composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold and writer Casey Robinson also failed to be properly nominated, though they both received large numbers of postal votes for their work.

This was a big gamble for Warner Brothers in 1935 as it was a big expensive production costing $1 million without any household names (both Flynn and de Havilland became stars after the film's release).

The first screen duel between Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone, to be replayed three years later and to grander effect in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).

His first major starring role, Errol Flynn was so nervous during the initial shooting that director Michael Curtiz had to re-shoot his early scenes much later into the production, by which time Flynn had gained a level of confidence.

Although they worked together a total of 12 times, Errol Flynn and Michael Curtiz disliked each other intensely.

The first film to feature a musical score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, one of Hollywood's greatest composers. Korngold was given three weeks to score the film, although during the day he was working on adapting the score of an operetta for Paramount called Give Us This Night (1936). He worked nights on his Captain Blood (1935) score.

Lord Willoughby is a combination of Lord Julian Wade and Lord Willoughby, the two nobleman characters from Raphael Sabatini's book.

The first talkie to be based on a novel by then popular novelist Rafael Sabatini.

The first of nine movies made together by Warner Brothers' romantic couple Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn.

Basil Rathbone felt miscast as a French pirate.

The card game Bronson and Whacker are playing is Cribbage.

Cast of Captain Blood

Errol Flynn as Peter Blood
Olivia de Havilland as Arabella Bishop
Lionel Atwill as Colonel Bishop
Basil Rathbone as Levasseur
Ross Alexander as Jeremy Pitt, Blood's friend and navigator
Guy Kibbee as Hagthorpe, another crewman
Henry Stephenson as Lord Willoughby
Robert Barrat as Wolverstone
Hobart Cavanaugh as Dr. Bronson
Donald Meek as Dr. Whacker
Jessie Ralph as Mrs. Barlow
Forrester Harvey as Honesty Nuttall