Captain Blood (1935)

Errol Flynn: Peter Blood

Photos 

Quotes 

• Sentry : Pirates! Spanish pirates!

  Dr. Peter Blood : This is what I call a timely interruption! Though what'll come of it - the devil himself only knows!

• Dr. Peter Blood : Up that rigging, you monkeys! Aloft! There's no chains to hold you now. Break out those sails and watch them fill with the wind that's carrying us all to freedom!

• Dr. Peter Blood : My business was with his wounds, not his politics

  Baron Jeffreys : Did you know the law that any person who does knowingly receive, harbor, comfort or succor a rebel is as guilty as if he himself bore arms?

  Dr. Peter Blood : I only knew my sacred duty as a physician.

  Baron Jeffreys : Your sacred duty, rogue, is to your king!

  [coughs and sits back] 

  Dr. Peter Blood : I thought it was to my fellow man.

• Capt. Hobart : Who the devil may you be?

  Dr. Peter Blood : Peter Blood, Medicinae Baccalaureus.

  Capt. Hobart : Don't fling your French at me!

  Dr. Peter Blood : Latin, my dull friend. It means I'm a doctor.

  Capt. Hobart : Or a liar!

  Dr. Peter Blood : If your wit were as big as your voice, me dear, it's the great man you'd be by this.

  Capt. Hobart : You may find me great enough to hang you.

  Dr. Peter Blood : 'Faith, yes, I don't doubt it. You've the looks and manners of a hangman.

  Capt. Hobart : Take him away. And the others, too.

• Dr. Peter Blood : Nuttall, me lad, there's just one other little thing. Do you think you could find me a good stout piece of timber? About so thick and so long?

  Honesty Nuttall : Yes, I think so.

  Dr. Peter Blood : Then do so and lash it to your spine - it needs stiffening. Courage! We'll join you at midnight.

• Dr. Peter Blood : It seems that you're continually doing me favors. Faith, I don't know why.

  Arabella Bishop : Neither do I. Yes I do. It's because you're so very grateful and always thank me so prettily.

  Dr. Peter Blood : Sure now, you don't blame me for resenting you and your favors.

  Arabella Bishop : This is interesting. I've had men tell me they had reasons for admiring me... and some few have even laid claims to reasons for loving me. But for a man to store up reasons for resenting me... how refreshing! You must tell me a few of them.

  Dr. Peter Blood : First, is reason enough: you bought me. I've had no lack of experiences in my time; but to be bought and sold was a new one. I was in no mood to thank my purchaser.

  Arabella Bishop : That I can understand. Go on.

  Dr. Peter Blood : I've resented you because your name's Bishop. My thoughts have lumped you with your uncle. How was I to know, be dad, that a devil could have... that a devil could have an angel for a niece.

  Arabella Bishop : From a resentful man that is a pretty fair compliment.

• [first lines] 

  Jeremy Pitt : Doctor Blood! Doctor Blood!

  Mrs. Barlow : Who, who is it?

  Dr. Peter Blood : That we'll know better when you've opened the door.

  Mrs. Barlow : Me?

  Dr. Peter Blood : My mistake, after I've opened the door.

• [last lines] 

  Arabella Bishop : Oh, oh have mercy, your Excellency. Have mercy.

  Col. Bishop : Arabella, why are you here?

  Arabella Bishop : Uncle. I have been pleading with the governor on your behalf, asking him to be as merciful as you would be cruel. Uncle, this is the governor.

  Dr. Peter Blood : Good morning, Uncle.

• Mrs. Barlow : You would think of geraniums when every other able-bodied man is out fighting!

  Dr. Peter Blood : Hmm. It's out of favor I seem to be with you, my vinegary virgin.

  Mrs. Barlow : Half the town is saying you're a Papist.

  Dr. Peter Blood : Why? Because I've the sense to sleep this night instead of rushing to my ruin in a hopeless attempt to put this Duke of Monmouth on the throne? He'd be even worse than King James. Make haste with that cloak there, my pretty one.

  Mrs. Barlow : And the other half of the town that defends you claims that you're just a coward.

  Dr. Peter Blood : Mrs. Barlow, me darlin', you can tell 'em if you like that I've been most everywhere that fighting was in evidence: I fought for the French against the Spanish and the Spanish against the French... and I learned me seamanship in the Dutch navy. And having had adventure enough in six years to last me six lives, I came here. Hung up the sword and picked up the lancet; became a man of peace and not of war... a healer, not a slayer. And that I'm going to be as long as I'm on top of the sod and not under it.

• Dr. Peter Blood : [to Baron Jeffreys, judge of the court]  Faith, there's a witness that you can't deny: yourself, sir! For if I'm not a physician, how is it I know that you're a dying man? The death to which you're dooming hundreds of poor men daily - in a frantic effor to send their souls to perdition before your own - is a light pleasantry compared to the bleeding death in the lungs to which the great Judge has condemned you.

• Baron Jeffreys : It's a fearful thing to send a man's soul to perdition, but I am bound by my conscience and by my love of my king to deal out justice. Therefore, I instruct you gentlemen of the jury, that in as much as Peter Blood has admitted aiding a traitor to your king, you do bring in a verdict of guilty that he may be hanged for the high treason that he has committed.

  Dr. Peter Blood : What a creature must sit on the throne who lets a man like you deal out his justice.

• Crewman : [Captain Blood's ship has just received a terrible broadside from the one remaining French warship]  We're sinking! What should we do?

  Dr. Peter Blood : Do? We'll board a ship that's not sinking!

• Dr. Peter Blood : It's entirely innocent, I am!

• Dr. Peter Blood : Men, I've just heard a startling piece of news - King James is kicked out of England and good King William reigns in his stead.

  [the crew all cheer] 

  Dr. Peter Blood : For me this changes the shape of the world. For you who were slaves with me, it means that we're no longer slaves, that we once more have a home and a country. For you who are English it means a chance to fight for your native land... for I now propose to sail into Port Royal and take it from the French! Those of you who are not English will have to be content with fighting for Captain Blood... and the loot you'll find on the French ships. Are you willing to fight, men?

  [the crew all cheer, "Aye"] 

• [Peter Blood watches as the slave ship he and the others are on approaches Port Royal] 

  Dr. Peter Blood : It's a truly royal clemency we're granted, my friends... one well worthy of King James. He spares us the mercifully quick extinction of the hangman's rope... and gives us the slow death of slavery. He grants us our lives in exchange for living death. Faith, it's an uncertain world entirely.

• Dr. Peter Blood : Miss Bishop, it's difficult for an Irishman to apologize; but I hope you can forgive me for having thought badly of you.

  Arabella Bishop : I will if you tell me how you think of me now.

  Dr. Peter Blood : How I think of you now? I think of you... I think of you as the woman who owns me - her slave. But I think the man is lucky who can count you his friend.

  Arabella Bishop : I think you know YOU can.

  [she extends her hand for him to shake - he kisses her - she's startled, pulls away and slaps him] 

  Dr. Peter Blood : Your slave is grateful for all marks of favor.

  Arabella Bishop : When you forget your slavery and go so far...

  Dr. Peter Blood : Now there you're mistaken. However far this slave may go, he won't forget. That's a characteristic that the Irish have in common with the elephants.

• [the former slaves have taken the Spanish ship - as the Spaniards return, their boats are destroyed by the ship's cannons] 

  Henry Hagthorpe : Didn't I tell you I was a gunner, sir?

  Dr. Peter Blood : You did that, you son of a Yorkshire steer - and bless your rusty heart, it's a gunner you are!

• Dr. Peter Blood : Have we an English battle flag on board, Hagthorpe?

  Henry Hagthorpe : We have every manner of battle flag on board, including a lady's purple petticoat.

  Dr. Peter Blood : No, wait. I've a better idea. When an English lion creeps up on a nest of French foxes he does well to wear a bushy tail. Hoist the French flag, Hagthorpe.

  Henry Hagthorpe : Aye, sir.

• Levasseur : You'll not take her while I live.

  Dr. Peter Blood : Then I'll take her when you're dead.

• Lord Willoughby : However you hate the King, England is still England.

  Dr. Peter Blood : And a bad king is a bad king, and a worse one if he's James.

  Lord Willoughby : James? This commission is sent by King William.

  Dr. Peter Blood : King William? Who may King William be, and what's he king of?

  Lord Willoughby : I'm alluding to His Majesty, King William III, William of Orange... who, with Queen Mary, has come over from the Netherlands... and has been ruling England the past two months or more.

  Dr. Peter Blood : They've roused themselves at home and kicked out that pimple James?

  Lord Willoughby : Yes, and he's fled to France and he's in hiding there... and England and France are at war. The English people will go so far, Captain Blood... and then they get up on their stubborn hind legs.

• Prosecutor : Peter Blood... guilty or not guilty?

  Dr. Peter Blood : It's entirely innocent, I am!

  Clerk of the court : Take the stand and face his Lordship.

  [Peter Blood does so] 

  Clerk of the court : Are you guilty or not guilty? You must use the right words.

  Dr. Peter Blood : Words is it? Oh. Not guilty. And speaking of words, I'd like to say a few about the injustice of keeping an innocent man locked up for three months in such filth and heat and ill-feeding... that my chief regret is I didn't try to pull down the filthy fellow that sits on the throne!

• Dr. Peter Blood : For those of you who aren't English it means a chance to fight for Captain Blood *and* the loot you find on the French ships!

• [Arabella sees Peter leaving the Governor's house after treating him for gout] 

  Arabella Bishop : Oh, forgive me for not recognizing you, Dr. Blood. You're so changed... and for the better.

  Dr. Peter Blood : The Governor tells me I have you to thank for that.

  Arabella Bishop : You don't sound very grateful, Dr. Blood.

  Dr. Peter Blood : Do you suppose I'd be grateful for an easy life, when my friends are treated like animals? Faith, it's they deserve your favors, not I. They're all honest rebels. I was snoring in my bed while they were trying to free England from an unclean tyrant.

  Arabella Bishop : I believe you're talking treason.

  Dr. Peter Blood : I hope I'm not obscure.

• [Capt. Blood is dictating to Jeremy Pitt the agreement for the sailors who are assembled on the deck] 

  Dr. Peter Blood : We, the undersigned, are men without a country. Outlaws in our own land and homeless outcasts in any other. Desperate men, we go to seek a desperate fortune. Therefore, we do, here and now, band ourselves into a brotherhood of bucaneers... to practice the trade of piracy on the high seas. We, the hunted, will now hunt! Therefore, to that end, we enter into the following Articles of Agreement: First: We pledge ourselves to be bound together as brothers in a life and death friendship, sharing alike in fortune and in trouble. Second Article: All monies and valuables which may come into our possession shall be lumped together into a common fund... and from this fund shall first be taken the money to fit, rig, and provision the ship. After that, the recompense each shall receive who is wounded is follows: for the loss of a right arm: 600 pieces of eight; left arm: 500; for the loss of a right leg: 500; left leg: 400.

  Honesty Nuttall : [to Hagthorpe]  A fella can get rich if he's lucky.

  Henry Hagthorpe : Greedy, greedy.

  Dr. Peter Blood : [continuing to dictate]  If a man conceal any treasure captured or fail to place it in the general fund, he shall be marooned. Set ashore on a deserted isle, and there left with a bottle of water, a loaf of bread and a pistol with one load. If a man shall be drunk on duty he shall recieve the same fate. And if a man shall molest a woman captive against her will... he, too, shall receive the same punishment. These Articles entered into this 20th day of June, in the year 1687.

  [having finished dictating, he addresses the crew] 

  Dr. Peter Blood : Now, men, you've heard the Agreement. It's the world against us and us against the world!

  Rev. Uriah Ogle : "His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him." Genesis, 16th chapter, 12th verse.

  Dr. Peter Blood : Those of you in favor of these Articles raise your right hands and say, "Aye!"

  [the whole crew does so] 

• Dr. Peter Blood : [Captain Blood kills Levasseur, his body lies at his feet]  And that my friend ends a partnership that should never have begun.

• Dr. Peter Blood : Such a partnership requires sober thought. My poor head has been dancing with rum this whole week past.

  Levasseur : Even so drunk, your brain is the greatest this side the Carribean. With your brain and my strength, there is nothing we cannot do.

  Dr. Peter Blood : But there's very little I can't do all by myself.

• Dr. Peter Blood : Women will be the death of yet, Levasseur.

  Levasseur : Then it is a very pleasant way to die, even if it is expensive.

• Dr. Peter Blood : The greatest captain on the coast, is it? Well be dead when he thinks the greatest captain on the coast has just made the greatest mistake the most ordinary common fool could make.

• Dr. Peter Blood : I must congratulate you, Levasseur. I didn't so much as sight a sail.

  Levasseur : The fortunes of war, my partner.

  Dr. Peter Blood : And these are also the fortune of war?

  Levasseur : Indeed fortunes, a noble Englishmen and the niece of the governor of Jamaica.

  Dr. Peter Blood : Really? I suppose congratulations are again in order, but have you forgotten there is an article in our agreement forbidding the taking of women prisoners?

  Levasseur : That's a foolish article of yours.

  Dr. Peter Blood : I was not aware you regarded it so when we signed it.

• Jeremy Pitt : We've been with you since the first, Peter. We have a right.

  Dr. Peter Blood : You too, Jeremy?

• Jeremy Pitt : Peter, is our boat still standing in the bay?

  Dr. Peter Blood : Yes, Jeremy.

  Jeremy Pitt : I wondered if I was still out of my mind. I've been seeing boats sailing, in and out, in and out. But ours will never sail. Not now. Or if it does, you'll sail without me.

• Peter Blood : Do you think you could find me a good stout piece of timber, about so thick and so long?

  Honesty Nuttall : Yes I think so.

  Peter Blood : Then do so and lash it to your spine. It needs stiffening.

• Peter Blood : Once, you bought me for 10 miserable pounds. Now I bought you for considerably more. The amount's of no matter. What matters is that now I own you as you once owned me. You're mine, do you understand? Mine to do with as I please.

• Dr. Peter Blood : [Treating Gov. Steed's gout]  I'm going to have you well by midnight if I have to bleed you to death.