Captain Blood / The Sea Hawk (Errol Flynn)

Captain Blood (1958)Errol Flynn shot to stardom as Peter Blood, a 17th-century physician who turned pirate after escaping unjust political imprisonment. It was a role the handsome, sea-loving Tasmanian was born to play, and he shaped it into Hollywood\'s archetypal image of the adventurous hero. That he also became a romantic idol and a vision of gallantry in love is due in large part to his ideally cast co-star: radiant Olivia de Havilland in the first of their eight films together. Directed with panache by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca), scored with flair by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and featuring Basil Rathbone and Lionel Atwill as villains to remember, Captain Blood becomes a ride on the high seas of unparalleled enjoyment.
The Sea Hawk (1940) Cannons thunder, blades clatter and Erich Wolfgang Korngold\'s incomparable music swirls and flourishes in The Sea Hawk. In one of his best roles, Errol Flynn plays Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe, who commandeers a 40-gun galleon, endures captivity, and then boldly escapes to warn England of Spain\'s armada. Working on his 10th of 12 movies with Flynn, Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) masterfully directs the film\'s blend of royal intrigue and derring-do heroics - made on a then-lavish $1.7-million scale that included construction of two full-sized ships. The film was stirringly topical in its day. When Queen Elizabeth (Flora Robson) exhorts her country to maintain fighting readiness against tyranny \"now and forever,\" audiences knew forever had come: Hitler had launched his World War II air siege of England.