Majorthebys Charming and brutal

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

SipteaHighTea I enjoy movie. I thought Louis Hayward was very charming with his witty humor and tongue to get himself in and out of trouble and to speak with a Hispanic accent. In this movie, Louis Hayward and his first mate remember very easy about their horrible times as slaves (they were sold into slavery by the English) which is why Hayward had to go back to and release his men even though it might cost him his life. It also seems that Louis raid the Spanish colonies while in the Errol Flynn raided both the English and Spanish colonies. George Macready did play an excellent role in the movie. I recognize his voice, but not his name. The women were also very funny as well as full of pride.

zardoz-13 A Columbia Pictures' release, "The Fortunes of Captain Blood" (1950) neither boasts the epic scale nor the lavish quality that Warner Brothers' poured into its classic 1935 Errol Flynn original with Erich Wolfgang Korngold's exhilarating orchestral score. Essentially, this thoroughly routine black and white swashbuckler confines itself largely to intrigue on land rather than adventure on the high seas. The budgetary constraints no doubt forced veteran director Gordon Douglas to stage only two less than spectacular sea battles that take place at the outset and during the finale. These lackluster clashes occur with the opposing ships miles apart rather than hull to hull. You won't see any pirates with cutlasses clenched in their scrofulous teeth as they swing from the rigging of their ship to board the enemy vessel.The pompous Hispanic monarch, King Charles II (Kurt Bois of "The Desert Song"),warns the Marquis de Riconete (George Macready of "Knock On Any Door")that unless he captures lawless Irish buccaneer Captain Blood (Louis Hayward of "Captain Pirate"), the king will strip him of all his wealth and position. Charles II also places a bounty of 50-thousand pieces of eight on Blood's head. Blood has has been devastating Spanish galleons in the West Indies. Blood and his ship the Avenger lie off the island of La Hacha, the most important Spanish possession in the West Indies. They are awaiting a signal from the mainland to pick up supplies and ammunition from a trusted merchant. Unfortunately, it's a trap, and the Marquis bags a boatload of Blood's men. Although we never see them once they wind up behind bars, we learn from the expository dialogue in the loquacious screenplay by Frank Burt of "Barbary Pirate," Michael Hogan of "Tall in the Saddle," and Robert Libott of "Captain Pirate," that these poor souls are forced to dive for pearls in shark-infested waters with slim chances of survival. Captain Blood refuses to tolerate this unhappy situation. He remembers his own days as a prisoner and he ventures ashore against the advice of his second-in-command to free his men. Masquerading as a harmless fruit peddler, Senor Morales, so that he can have open access to the town, he sets out to rescue his enslaved sailors. Along the way, he encounters a hot-blooded little tomato, Pepita Maria Rosados (Dona Drake of "Road to Morocco"),who takes a shine to him. Pepita's boyfriend is the Prison Overseer, Carmilio (Alfonso Bedoya of "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," who uttered the famous line of dialogue from the Humphrey Bogart classic: "We don't need no stinkin' badges!")."The Fortunes of Captain Blood" contains few surprises or revelations during its trim 90 running time. A clean-shaven Louis Hayward makes an adequate Captain Blood, but he sorely lacks the charisma of an Errol Flynn. Consequently, Hayward seems somewhat wooden in the role. In his defense, Hayward doesn't perform any feats of valor like Flynn did because the scenarists give him nothing in the way of grandstanding heroics. On the other hand, George Macready doesn't make your blood boil as the villainous Marquis. As the Marquis' relative Isabelita Sotomayor, beautiful Patricia Medina of "Mr. Arkadin" spends more time off-screen than on-screen. Eventually, Captain Blood gets around to wooing Isabelita, but he devotes more time to spunky Pepita so he can befriend Carmilio and orchestrate the release of his men. However, since there is no suspense, Blood has few close calls with his adversaries and rarely appears in jeopardy. The miniature ships look fine, but the back projection aboard the ships when the heroes and villains weight anchor is obvious. The sword fighting choreography is strictly second-rate with the combatants never moving far from where the fight started. The last scene before the final ship battle when Blood and his men switch ships and capture a Spanish warship anticipates the future cinematic antics of Captain Jack Sparrow against the British.

Django6924 The previous poster is mistaken if she remembers seeing Hayward in glorious color--this is a black and white movie---and a less glorious B&W than that supplied Warner Brothers' Captain Blood by Ernest Haller and Hal Mohr. In fact, Fortunes often looks like a TV production--and not just because of the poor model work. What isn't typical of a TV movie is the surprising amount of violence--Blood's crew is bludgeoned mercilessly when they are captured, whipped by the Marquis and his overseers, and forced to listen to Alfonso Bedoya's idiosyncratic line readings.I remember seeing Louis Hayward in The Black Arrow when I was about 10, and thinking that movie a great swashbuckler. Yet when I read the posts about it on IMDb, I wonder if my memory is playing tricks on me as well. Watching a bit of Fortunes on TCM, I rather suspect it is--this movie is pretty tepid, with the chief excellence being Hayward's performance, even though he gets no help from the script or director.

bkoganbing As everyone remembers in the classic Errol Flynn version of Captain Blood, he whipped his fellow pirate Basil Rathbone in a dual on the dunes, he took Lionel Atwill's place as royal governor of Jamaica after the House of Orange threw out the House of Stuart in The Glorious Revolution and married Atwill's niece Olivia DeHavilland to live happily ever after. I think it was understood there'd be no more pirating under William and Mary.Yet here we have Captain Blood, this time played by Louis Hayward, back at his old trade again. I guess politics must have bored him, but what happened to Olivia because Hayward's got a couple of girls panting after him in this story.The women are the Spanish viceroy's niece Patricia Medina and an innkeeper's niece, Dona Drake. It seems as though several of Blood's crew were betrayed on a shopping trip for supplies and sold into slavery. Doing the selling was George MacReady who's been charged by the King of Spain to bring in Captain Blood dead or alive. He's also got a lustful gleam in his eye for Patrica Medina and who could blame the old reprobate.Hayward's mission is to free his captive crew members and he has to involve himself with a whole lot of intrigue, political and romantic. In a way he really acts like a heel towards Drake and it does kind of lessen audience sympathy for him.Harry Cohn at Columbia did not want to spend as much money as Jack Warner did on his version and it shows. Hayward is capable enough as Peter Blood, but I kind of like MacReady in this film, he really does dominate it whenever he's on screen. Alfonso Bedoya is also good as the slave overseer.When all's said and done Fortunes of Captain Blood just doesn't measure up to what made Errol Flynn a star.