Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.

During the Napoleonic wars Captain Hornblower is sent under sealed orders to the coast of Central America. The mission is to deliver arms to a rebel; when Spain changes sides, the man is no longer an ally but an enemy. From the moment he takes the order Hornblower does not know the situation has changed. The film is not interested in sea battle. It is interested in a commander's solitude: aboard, he is the only person who can decide, and every decision may turn out afterwards to have been wrong. The Lady Barbara strand in the second half is the private-life version of the same weight. The form is big-studio seafaring: full-scale ship sets, gunnery, Technicolor and crowded deck scenes. Part of it was shot in the Mediterranean. Raoul Walsh directed, from C.S. Forester's Hornblower novels, with Forester contributing to the screenplay. A Warner Bros production, expensive for its time. Gregory Peck plays Hornblower and Virginia Mayo plays Lady Barbara. Who it is for: viewers who like classical sea adventure and Gregory Peck. Who it is not for: anyone after depth of character. The self-doubting inner voice of the Hornblower of the books is largely lost here, and the romance slows the story.