Horatio Hornblower
Raoul Walsh
1951
Grade: C-
The trick with any discussion of this movie will be to divorce it from the very powerful childhood memories I have of the novel series upon which it is loosely based. I had read books before I came to C.S. Forester’s historical fiction, but they were of a decidedly more juvenile bent. Works like The Hardy Boys by the imaginary Franklin W. Dixon, R.L. Stein’s Goosebumps series, or Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles, were most often the caliber of text I’d have been found eagerly digesting. I don’t know when precisely it was that I felt brave enough to sneak into my dad’s office, with its imposing wall of books, and pluck one free of its moorings, but I can say that it was done for all the wrong reasons. The only thing I enjoyed more than being a reader in elementary school was being perceived as such, and to that end I would brandish the bookish looking books I could comfortably carry on the bus, in the lunchroom, on the playground, or in any other venue where the actual act of reading effectively would be borderline impossible but confer the greatest opportunity to fabricate reputation. My favorite tool for this social construction was a 1945 edition of Kenneth Roberts’ Captain Caution. I loved, and love, the feel and smell of this book, and, as mentioned, it abounded in the prerequisite look. You know you’d be impressed if you saw a ten year old pretending to read this.
However, it wasn’t just the aesthetics that I liked. I was also a fan of the little illustrations on the inside cover that had a map of the setting of the novel and a description of the types of ships of the early 18th century.
Somewhere along the line, and in the category of fake it until you make it, I accidentally read the novel all the way through and was completely entranced. I couldn’t wait to read more books about ships and sword fights, squalls and topsails, so I ran to Dad, knowing there had to be more of such fare on those shelves and asked for something else. He carefully returned the antique copy of Captain Caution to its proper place and then handed me a well traveled paperback copy of Flying Colors
Even at that age I understood what he was trying to say about which of his books he’d prefer I take with me to school. Thus was I introduced to the great Captain Horatio Hornblower, and he’s been one of my favorite fictional characters ever since. Knowing my proclivity for completeness as an adult, I’m actually surprised that the child me utterly ignored the fact that I was jumping into a series at book seven. I guess either I didn’t notice (likely) or I was simply too eager to care (more likely).
This extensive prologue is simply to say that I have a difficult time being anything approaching objective when it comes to this movie and am not likely to be as reliable a witness as I might be otherwise.
What is immediately apparent, even to those who have not read the books, is that rather than one cohesive narrative, this film consists of three vignettes stitched together; the capture and recapture of the Natividad in the Pacific Ocean, the Journey back to England with Lady Barbara Wellesley, and the battle with the French blockade runners. These are pieces from three separate Hornblower novels (The Happy Return, Ship of the Line, Flying Colors) and Forester himself is credited with the adaptation for screen, so one would assume this patchwork quality had his blessing. I can think of two reasons behind this choice. The first is that 1951 was not the era of long running, big-budget movie series, so the notion that a major studio would consider investing in a multi-film Hornblower production was slim at best, so the production might have been hoping to do a survey of Hornblower’s most iconic moments thinking it would be their only bite at the apple(oddly this reminds me of the 2018 Jason Mamoa Aquaman movie which has much the same feel). The second is that it allows for the greatest variety of scenes in an attempt to cultivate the widest possible audience. Certainly without the presence of the Lady Wellesley narrative there would be no room for the romantic subplot.
Whatever the reason, there are costs that come with this narrative structure, and the most potent is the loss of a proper climax. Of course each vignette has its own high point, but the film itself does not build toward any particular moment.
The vignettes themselves are well chosen and, particularly in the case of the first, do wonderful work of introducing the type of character Hornblower is. In fact, most of the minor events, dialogue, and interactions all lend themselves to a character study of the stoic captain. Gregory Peck’s portrayal is strong, but the script does shy away from some of his loneliness and self doubt that I remember from the books. The standout performance however must go to Virginia Mayo’s turn as the strikingly beautiful, love-lorn, and indeed heroic Lady Barbara Wellesley. On more than one occasion, and sometimes with something as simple as a look, she steals nearly every scene of which she is a part.
Whether it’s cradling the head of a dying Midshipman or being confronted with the fact that the man she’s just confessed her love to is married, her reactions and emotions really can be felt as though reaching out through the screen.
Unfortunately, not all of the performances are as successful, and Alec Mango’s El Supremo, a would be Central American dictator, is one such. Some account must be made for the fact that his performance is almost certainly the type of manic lunacy that the script was calling for, and this might be what a general audience thinks the behavior of dictators is actually like, but for my own part, the frantic, wide-eyed, portrayal of what is clearly a sadistic and unhinged madman seems to step too far into the realm of parody.
The filmmaking is another mark in its favor as the model work and matte paintings are very well done, and the ship battles have a clear narrative in the destruction such that a viewer could actually follow the progress without the aid of the character dialogue. Likewise, the sets, props, and costumes feel real and lived in and, while the movie plays heavily on the effect of having large chunks of the rigging fall on different characters during the naval battles, there’s a real effort to recreate a sense of what that chaos may have looked like (obviously with the gore and language curtailed for the sensibilities of a 1951 audience). Movies at this time still struggled with realistic cannon shot and recoil, but that might be a pretentious nitpick forged in my time as a French and Indian War cannon crew reenactor. There’s just something about the tremendous earth shaking thunder of that weapon that never seems to make it into the movies, and the fact that anyone stood in an enclosed space while dozens of them were fired at once and wasn’t immediately concussed into deafness shocks me to no end.
I enjoy Gregory Peck’s performance of the hearty, reserved, and secretly complicated Captain. The colors, the music, and the sets are all worthy of attention. Even the occasional side character gets an opportunity to add levity or character to a given situation. However, I do wish that the sum was greater than its parts. The three separate narratives have little in the way of connective tissue and, other than all helping to explore the character of Hornblower himself, don’t have a common direction.
Now I suppose we should discuss the ending, by far the weakest element of the film. The romance between Lady Barbara and Hornblower is excellent in its pathos. He’s married, she’s engaged, yet they fall for each other on the months-long journey back to England. A single kiss, a tearful goodbye, and you’ve the makings of a real tragedy. The scene where they meet in London after her marriage to Admiral Leighton is perfectly underwritten with all of this pain in the polite silence and achingly cordial handshake. I guess leaving that tragedy intact would have been too much to ask. Instead, Hornblower comes back to find that his wife died in childbirth and Admiral Leighton died off screen in the battles with the French, so our two leads are able to stereotypically embrace as the film fades to black. The only problem is, speaking for myself, I never think it’s a good idea to give your valiant hero the perception of having, “thank goodness my wife died”, as a thought that goes through his head.
All that said, here is a solid adventure with a classic, yet in ways unique, hero. Sword fights, daring escapes, and a great invitation into the world of the novels. I enjoyed it, flaws and all.
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