The first adaptation of Captain Blood was the 1924 silent film directed by David Smith and starring J. Warren Kerrigan as Captain Blood and Jean Paige as Arabella Bishop. In 1935 Michael Curtiz directed the classic film version of the novel, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Haviland. This is a splendid production that remains fairly close to Sabatini's novel. There is some condensation of characters and incident, but the film captures the spirit of the novel. Erich Wolfgang Korngold provided the stirring score for the film, as he did he for another Sabatini/Flynn collaboration: The Sea Hawk.

In 1950 Columbia produced Fortunes of Captain Blood, directed by Gordon Douglas, and starring Louis Hayward and Patricia Medina. It was based on Sabatini's short story collection, The Fortunes of Captain Blood (1936). In 1952 Colombia produced Captain Pirate with the same stars, based on another Captain Blood sequel called Captain Blood Returns (1931). A...