Adventures of Captain Fabian (1951)
Adventures of Captain Fabian (1951), directed by William Marshall.
A fiery Creole woman -- from an aristocratic family but now a servant -- claws her way back into society with the intermittent aid of a tough sea captain.
I review this one only because I'm an Errol Flynn completist and it's on Blu-ray. But it is a dull affair. Flynn is a secondary character in his own film and there is very little adventure, and no scenes at sea.
For good features it has Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead. Filmed in France, substituting for New Orleans.
Flynn gets screenwriting credit although it is disputed how much of it he did. The female lead was an accomplished French actress. Her husband was the producer and took over directing, probably a mistake.
That we have inexpert writing and direction helps just a touch: we don't know where the story is going, if anywhere.
See this exciting poster?
That's not in the film and he doesn't take off his shirt. I doubt if his body would look quite that chiseled if he did. I'm not sure that's even him in the final scene: it looks like a stand-in with a voice-over.
Do you remember the Citadel Press large-format "Films of..." picture book series? They are worth picking up if you are a classic films addict, although I find errors on every page if I know something about the topic. I don't believe the authors have actually seen all the films they describe in these books.
In The Films of Errol Flynn for Captain Fabian they have not much more than:
quote
... undoubtedly one of the dullest pictures extant... Why Flynn would want credit, justified or not, on such an old-fashioned, stilted piece of claptrap is something to ponder... Flynn plays with little spirit or conviction, and there is virtually no action until the last reel.
Available on Blu-ray from Olive Films. No subtitles.
