Captains Incorrigible!

I don't think there has ever been a movie star with the allure and romance of Errol Flynn. He was dashing, handsome, and communicated a sense of devil-may-care that illuminated any room he walked into. Errol Flynn might well have been the greatest "movie star" ever. Of course part of that fame is really the infamy of his personal life which is the very stuff of Hollywood legend.

I am in a Flynn mode right now having gotten several of his flicks on dvd. I spent some time this past weekend watching both Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk. It's interesting to watch these two flicks back to back. I've always preferred the later Sea Hawk to the earlier Captain Blood but I think I've changed my mind.

Captain Blood was Flynn's debut movie, and a magnificent one it was. The character of Peter Blood as portrayed by Flynn is at once noble and selfish. Blood is a great vehicle for the viewer into the battle for freedom. He just wants to be left alone, but is drawn into the war because of his ethics and finds no one in leadership possessing any ethics. He is what we'd call today radicalized by his imprisonment and harsh treatment. I can't help but think of Guantanamo Bay and the men the U.S. might've turned into revolutionaries by careless treatment. Certainly villains exist and must be dealt with, but just as doubtless men are made enemies by what they see around them. Injustice is blind to a flag.

The Sea Hawk is a rousing war film, a neat allegory for the tenor of the times when the Axis powers were threatening all Europe and strong backs and stiff necks were needed to stem the tide. Geoffrey Thorpe, the privateer played by Flynn in this one is more of a rascal than Blood, a hardened soldier and patriotic but not as open to feeling as Flynn's earlier pirate.

There's a high romance to Captain Blood that I find very attactive today, a greater feel of escapism. The action and the characterizations seems more natural and the fighting more exotic. The look of The Sea Hawk is much more lavish, but has a constricting feel to it compared to the earlier film. And as much as I like him in other roles, I find Henry Daniel as the main villain a bit weak in the face of Flynn's heroism. On the contrary while he's not on screen much Basil Rathbone in Captain Blood is amazing, both wild and memorable.

Both of these movies are wonderful flicks, but I find now that the saga of Peter Blood the outsider speaks to me more than the loyal man of the state Geoffry Thorpe these days. Doubtless it says more about me than the movies.

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