The Sea in Their Blood

Captain Blood is a 1935 American swashbuckler film directed by Michael Curtiz for First National Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, and starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill, and Basil Rathbone. With a screenplay by Casey Robinson, the film is based on the 1922 novel by Rafael Sabatini and concerns an imprisoned doctor and his fellow prisoners who escape their cruel island captivity to become West Indies pirates. Warner Bros. risked pairing two relatively unknown performers in the lead roles. Flynn's performance made him a major Hollywood star and established him as the natural successor to Douglas Fairbanks and a "symbol of an unvanquished man" during the Great Depression. Captain Blood also established de Havilland, in just her fourth screen appearance, as a major star and was the first of eight films costarring Flynn and de Havilland. The Oscar-nominated score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold started a trend for full-length symphonic scores. The film premiered on December 26, 1935, and was both a critical and commercial success. At the 8th Academy Awards, Captain Blood was nominated for Best Picture and received write-in nominations for Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Score. In 1962, Flynn's son Sean starred in The Son of Captain Blood.