In the past I wrote a review about a closely related movie, "Le Bossu" (The Hunchback). Much of what I wrote then applies also to this movie. It is a sleek, professionally made movie with lavish production values and stunning sets and locations. Marais plays the gallant, dashing hero and Bourvil provides the comic relief : both actors deliver good performances. It is said that Marais performed the many death-defying stunts himself ; if so, he must have been an uncommonly brave man.

I have never read the source material, but by way of educated guess I would suppose that it was unmercifully pruned and pummelled until it fit into the pattern. Surely the movie's resemblance to "Le Bossu" suggests a liberal hand with scissors and glue pot.

Sadly "Le Capitan" contains some easy caricatures - arch-villain Concini, to quote but one example, might just as well spend the whole movie twirling his moustache. Some of the dialogue is so wooden that one could use it to stun an intruder, while the political conspiracy depicted is clueless and inept to the point of surrealism - if these are supposed to be the finest minds in France and Navarra, one shudders to think of the rest...

Still, the movie contains at least one delicious one-liner (watch out for the scene where the hero risks life and limb in order to reach a female prisoner).

Not the way the French pupils and students remember him.He was not a jolly fellow .When he died,soon after le Cardinal de Richelieu ,both were not mourned.But "le Capitan" takes place during the king's youth ,when Concini was ruling the country on behalf of the queen mother Anne d'Autriche,and when Richelieu was a Concini protégé -he does not appear anyway- Jean Marais was cast as Jean Marais the fair knight, a part he played in half a dozen of swashbucklers of the era("le capitaine Fracasse","le miracle des loups" "le bossu" "le masque de fer" "les mysteries de Paris" ..).Elsa Martinelli, a former Kirk Douglas protégée supplies the love interest :a belle who wants her father to become king and thus to overthrow the legitimate one.Concini was ,even in history,a true villain who squandered the money that Sully ,Henri the Fourth's minister, had amassed.In the movie ,he becomes a super villain ,trying to kill his king by poisoning him or drugging his horse .Why not? Bourvil and Pierrette Bruno provides the flick with a welcome comic relief.

Those old Marais movies retain a certain charm.History was given a rough ride,à la Alexandre Dumas,but they are still enjoyable today.Recommended for the family.

Good swashbuckler set in France by the time King Louis XIII was just a teenager. It seems that nobody wants to see him sitting on the throne, including his lovely mother. But there is a loyal nobleman who will fight bravely to put things in order. Legendary French actor Jean Marais is a bit too old to play the hero but he tries hard and really does a good job. As the comic relief, comedian Bourvil plays the street artist who helps Marais in his mission. Fencing and action sequences don't look as great as in Errol Flynn's classics but the old castles are real and "Le Capitan" provides a good fun for its audience. By the way, English title "Captain Blood" makes no sense; this captain has no relation neither to 1935 Hollywood classic nor to Rafael Sabatini's novel (this one is based on Michel Zevaco's histories).