The Spanish Main ( 1945 )

The Spanish Main ( 1945 ) (DVD) (*)

$21.99

Screened, competed or awarded at:
Oscar Academy Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Italian ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Italian ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
Italy ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
100 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 1945 and produced in:
United States ( USA, Canada )

Directed By:
Frank Borzage

Written By:
Æneas MacKenzie
George Worthing Yates

Actors:
Paul Henreid ..... Capt. Laurent Van Horn
Maureen O'Hara ..... Contessa Francesca
Walter Slezak ..... Don Juan Alvarado
Binnie Barnes ..... Anne Bonney
John Emery ..... Mario Du Billar
Barton MacLane ..... Capt. Benjamin Black
J.M. Kerrigan ..... Pillery Gow
Fritz Leiber ..... Bishop
Nancy Gates ..... Lupita
Jack La Rue ..... Lt. Escobar (as Jack LaRue)
Mike Mazurki ..... Erik Swaine
Ian Keith ..... Captain Lussan
Curt Bois ..... Paree
Antonio Moreno ..... Commandante

Synopsis:

RKO Radio's first film in the three-color Technicolor process was the standard-issue swashbuckler The Spanish Main. Paul Henried is his usual stoic self as Laurent Van Horn, a Dutch sea captain shipwrecked on the coast of Cartagena, a Spanish-held island. Sentenced to be hanged, Van Horn and his crew escape from jail and take up piracy as revenge against Spain. Soon afterward, they capture a ship carrying Francisca (Maureen O'Hara), the fiance of Cartagena's corrupt governor Don Alvarado (Walter Slezak). Van Horn vengefully forces Francisca to marry him instead, which causes dissension at the Pirate colony of Tortuga. Naturally, Van Horn and Francisca eventually fall in love with each other, but the bad guys must be vanquished before a happy ending can be realized. Binnie Barnes steals the show as feisty female buccaneer Anne Bonney (who in real life looked less like Barnes and more like Walter Slezak!) The script is a cynical melange of pirate-movie cliches and the performances are generally routine, but The Spanish Main pleased the crowd in 1945, posting a profit of nearly $1.5 million and encouraging future Technicolor adventure films from RKO.

Laurent van Horn is the leader of a band of Dutch refugees on a ship seeking freedom in the Carolinas, when the ship is wrecked on the coast of Cartagene. governed by Don Juan Alvardo, Spainish ruler. Alvarado has Laurent thrown in prison, but the latter escapes, and five-years later is a pirate leader. He poses as the navigator on a ship in which Contessa Francesca, daughter of a Mexican noble, is traveling on her way to marry Alvarado, whom she has never seen. Laurent's pirates capture the ship and Francesa, in order to save another ship, gives her hand-in-marriage to Laurent, who sails her to the pirate hideout. This irks the jealous Anne Bonney and,also, Captain Benjamin Black, who was already irked, anyway. They overpower Laurent and send Francesa to Alvarado, and then Mario du Billar, trusted right-hand man, makes a deal to deliver Laurent to Alvarado also.

This product was added to our catalog on Friday 18 January, 2019.