Captain Blood (1935)

A rogue hero with the usual heart o’ gold, a beautiful woman, grand costumes, swords, cannons, pirates, hateful nobles and warring European nations are the simple ingredients here. It’s a film that, along with the previous year’s The Count of Monte Cristo, helped write the book on Hollywood’s take on classic adventure stories. Director Michael Curtiz moves that camera, pumps up that Erich Wolfgang Korngold score and keeps lead actor Errol Flynn smiling in the face of danger. The formula works for me, gotta say. On a quiet summer evening, I’m always up for this kind of breeze. I can only imagine how rousing it must have been in 1935’s movie palaces, where it became a giant hit that elevated the careers of all involved. As the title character, a doctor who becomes a sea-faring pirate after he escapes arrest for treating a wounded enemy of England, Flynn went from a near-unknown to the face of Warner Brothers’ new commitment to historical action flicks. He’s a perfect fit for Douglas Fairbanks’s old boots, tunics and scabbards.