SABATINI AND HOLLYWOOD

Sabatini was very popular in England between the wars, and came to the attention of Hollywood as I think the first, but undeniably the foremost, writer of the "swashbuckling" era, although Hollywood did cause him considerable tax problems for royalty and copyright payments made in England for film rights in the US for I think, Captain Blood, a similar fate suffered later by P. G. Wodehouse in the 1940's.
"Captain Blood" was filmed in 1935 in black & white, directed by Michael Curtiz, with Errol Flynn (the Irishman who played all the handsome British heroes) cast in one of his first Hollywood parts, in the title role, with Olivia de Havilland as Arabella Bishop. This film has been repeated on the satellite channels in the UK during 1996, but now it seems to have fallen off the schedules. The film tries hard to follow the general theme of the story, better than many Hollywood attempts (see Scaramouche below), within the constraints of trying to fit a story which would probably require 4 or 5 hours of celluloid into the 100 minutes or so of the usual film length of the time. Basically, I think it is a worthy try, probably as Sabatini was still alive when it was made.
"Scaramouche" was filmed in 1952 with a British actor in the 'title' role, Stewart Granger, and Eleanor Parker as Lenore (Columbine in the book), Janet Leigh as Aline de Gavrillac and Mel Ferrer as the Marquis de Maine (Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr in the book), and directed by George Sidney. A very poor reflection of the book, which should be read before viewing the film - no, in fact, watch the film first then read the book and see the difference. Apart from some of the characters names, the story line bears hardly any relation to the book. It was recently shown on UK satellite television 3rd December 1997 (TNT Channel). If you want to see how Hollywood can destroy a good story, this is the best example that I know of - I fear Sabatini would have turned in his grave.
"The Marriage of Corbal" filmed in 1936 and presumably based on "The Nuptials Of Corbal", directed by Karl Grune and starring Hugh Sinclair and Hazel Terry. I have not seen this one.
"Bardleys the Magnificent" filmed by MGM in 1926 and now sadly lost.
"The Black Swan" filmed in 1942 by Warner Bros. I have not seen this one. Starred Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Hara, Anthony Quinn and George Sanders (a pretty good cast!), directed by Henry King. This film won an Oscar for its Technicolor Cinematography by Leon Shamroy. Can be obtained from Fox Video in the States, I think.
"The Sea Hawk" filmed in 1924 with Milton Sills and Enid Bennett and directed by Frank Lloyd. A black and white silent classic and sometimes shown on US TV. If you visit the site www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/FeaturedVideo/video108.htm, you can download a couple of stills from this movie.
"The Sea Hawk" filmed in 1940 with Errol Flynn, Flora Robson and Claude Rains and directed by Michael Curtiz; though it was purported to be based on the Sabatini novel, it bears no relationship to the book at all (apart from the title), worse even then Scaramouche. It isn't even an interpretation; literally, the only thing in common with the book is the tile. I have seen this one (and ignored it as having no association with my memories of the book), so I can't recall if it was any good.
There are two other films I have not seen, but might be based on the Sabatini charcter. "The Fortunes of Captain Blood" - 1950 directed by Gordon Douglas, and "Son of Captain Blood" (yes, really), - 1962 and directed by Tulio Demicheli. This latter had Sean Flynn in the title role, which may be significant in terms of whether it is based on Sabatini's character originally played by his father. The movie database also lists a couple of films "Le Capitan" (1960) and "Scaramouche" (1923).
I know of no other Hollywood (or for that matter, British Film Industry) attempts to re-create Sabatini on the big screen, but if you do, then e-mail me at [email protected] and tell me about it!

Out of interest, Sabatini did write some historical non-fictional accounts and essay�s including "The Life of Cesare Borgia" (1912 and revised 1926). The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) in the 1980�s did one of its historical drama series on this same subject, and I wonder if the Sabatini account formed part of the basis for the screenplay; I am still researching that. Sabatini clearly felt it necessary to defend the Borgia's against most of the outrageous slanders concocted against them by contemporaries and later writers, and I wonder if the BBC would have found those other versions more, how can one say, attractive dramatically?

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