Though it’s been a staple on Italian TV ever since childhood, for some reason I never got around to watching this seafaring epic – given its popular source material (C.S. Forester penned a series of novels about this fictional British naval hero), not to mention the imposing director and star (Gregory Peck) credentials. Anyway, going through a mini-swashbuckling marathon, it seemed the ideal opportunity to check it out; having said that, this is another film to which the epithet shouldn’t perhaps be attached – due to the fact that cannons are the sole weapons that are adopted during the various sea battles (after all, it’s closer to “Mutiny On The Bounty” than, say, the Errol Flynn vehicles made by the same studio, Warner Bros.)!
Unsurprisingly, however, the end result still proved to be extremely typical of its kind and era: a colorful spectacle full of adventure, drama and romance, to say nothing of a stalwart cast. In fact, many a future British star is featured in this Anglo-American production, among them James Robertson Justice (a role he would virtually recreate that same year in another pirate romp, ANNE OF THE INDIES, which I’ve also just watched for the first time), Stanley Baker and Christopher Lee! The film basically resolves itself into a series of vignettes, designed to showcase the many facets of Hornblower’s personality: able navigator, disciplined commander and clever strategist. However, it takes care as well (albeit less successfully) to promote his human side – not merely through the all-too-predictable romantic complications involving the Virginia Mayo character, but the Captain’s rather silly idiosyncrasy of clearing his throat whenever he finds himself at a disadvantage!
CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER, therefore, is an incident-packed and generally entertaining ride – albeit longish at nearly two hours; for the record, Walsh and Peck would collaborate on another adventure film with the same milieu – THE WORLD IN HIS ARMS (1952) – while the star had one of his most atypical and challenging roles in the best cinematic adaptation of an equally famed seafaring source, Herman Melville’s MOBY DICK (1956)…
Unsurprisingly, however, the end result still proved to be extremely typical of its kind and era: a colorful spectacle full of adventure, drama and romance, to say nothing of a stalwart cast. In fact, many a future British star is featured in this Anglo-American production, among them James Robertson Justice (a role he would virtually recreate that same year in another pirate romp, ANNE OF THE INDIES, which I’ve also just watched for the first time), Stanley Baker and Christopher Lee! The film basically resolves itself into a series of vignettes, designed to showcase the many facets of Hornblower’s personality: able navigator, disciplined commander and clever strategist. However, it takes care as well (albeit less successfully) to promote his human side – not merely through the all-too-predictable romantic complications involving the Virginia Mayo character, but the Captain’s rather silly idiosyncrasy of clearing his throat whenever he finds himself at a disadvantage!
CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER, therefore, is an incident-packed and generally entertaining ride – albeit longish at nearly two hours; for the record, Walsh and Peck would collaborate on another adventure film with the same milieu – THE WORLD IN HIS ARMS (1952) – while the star had one of his most atypical and challenging roles in the best cinematic adaptation of an equally famed seafaring source, Herman Melville’s MOBY DICK (1956)…