The Captain's Paradise (1953)

Just perfect...

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

For a film with a running time of just over an hour and a half, this contains a lot of filler. It takes an eternity to set up the basic situation, and doesn't do a lot with it when it eventually does. When it does gets going, it does contain some laughs, but not as many as one would expect. Not a total waste of time, but I was left with the feeling that television today would deal with this far more effectively and do it in about half the time.

In The Captain's Paradise Alec Guinness is in the title role and this is a man who thinks he has it made. He pilots a ferryboat from British Gibraltar to the City of Tangiers on the African coast. And he's got a wife on both sides to satisfy all his needs. Of course the women don't know about each other.In Gibraltar is proper wife and mother to two children Celia Johnson. She is for the man who likes to come home to a prepared meal, pipe and slippers, and a good book. But over in Tangiers is the sensuous and sexual part of his nature is Yvonne DeCarlo. With her Guinness wants to go out clubbing and one of the highlights of the film is him doing one wild mambo with DeCarlo.I have to say that Guinness's Henry St. James is one of the most chauvinistic characters I've ever seen portrayed on screen. Obviously no one woman will do for him, so he makes sure he gets all bases covered. If neither met a certain need I'll bet he'd have found a third or a fourth somewhere although that juggling act would have been something to see. These women truly exist to serve him and he never takes into account their needs or that people change over time. That proves to be his undoing.The Captain's Paradise got an Oscar nomination for Original Story and it is a pretty neat story. Guinness, Johnson, and DeCarlo give superb performances and so does Charles Goldner who plays his first mate on his ferryboat and learns his secret, but keeps it as he admires Guinness's romantic adroitness.A great one for Alec Guinness fans.

Everything about this delightful comedy starring Alec Guinness cries out "Ealing Studios" – that factory for genial humor of a more innocent (but still wide awake) time. So it's not a surprise many commenters here mistake "The Captain's Paradise" as an Ealing production.It isn't, but it's about as close to Ealing in spirit as you can get: Enchanting black-and-white photography that doesn't call attention to itself, fun-making at social strictures, a lead performance by Guinness that alternates between tragic and goofy, and a short running time. It's a lot better than some Ealings I've seen, if not as great as those two studio pillars, "The Ladykillers" and "Kind Hearts And Coronets."Guinness's character in this film is a ferryboat captain who transports people and cargo from the British island colony of Gibraltar to the coastal enclave of Kalik, where steamy nights and ersatz Spanish are the rule. The captain's life is much enhanced by the fact he has a lady at each port, one a prim British wife (Celia Johnson) who knows him as Capt. Henry St. James; the other a fiery Latin flamenco dancer (Yvonne De Carlo) who knows him as "Jimmy.""Two women, each with half the qualities necessary for a man, and therefore quite easy to find," is how he explains his approach to the only man who knows his secret, his ship's first mate Ricco (Charles Goldner). "And once found, never to meet!" But can the captain keep these women from meeting each other? What do you think!Guinness is front and center throughout the film, delivering a cerebral, understated profile in smugitude that begins with his eyes. Alternately heavy-lidded in repose or wide and blazing when upset, his eye reactions cue much of the laughter in this somewhat sedate comedy. It's a wonderfully efficient performance, centered by a scene where he hoofs a mean two-step with De Carlo, cigarette dangling lazy from his lips."He who enters paradise must have a golden key," the captain says before another rendezvous with his dancing lover. That's about as blue as this film gets, though De Carlo flashes some legs and Johnson, well, let's just say she's not as proper as we are led to think.People who criticize "The Captain's Paradise" as sexist or celebrating adultery miss the point. As an Ealing... well, almost an Ealing comedy, "Paradise" plays with stereotypes as a form of satire. That the captain thinks he has a great thing going is part of the humor. So is the fact he doesn't seem able to listen or process it when his women tell him otherwise. The tone set by director Anthony Kimmins is so merry it can be mistaken for approval, but this ignores the delicious resolution of the captain's two loves.The script by Alec Coppel and Nicholas Phipps sets up the captain's fragile situation. Prim Maud craves a bikini but settles for a vacuum. For them, it's hot cocoa and "beddy-byes" at 10. With fiery Nita, it's champagne and dancing all night at a place that looks like Rick's All- American Café, Guinness with a rose in his teeth. Anyone can see this is not a sustainable situation, and nearly any man can't gainsay his trying anyway.I think the film suffers from some minor flaws that show up more with repeat viewings. It does move slowly, taking up about thirty minutes to set up the premise everyone will know going in. There are a couple of bookend shots featuring Ricco explaining the situation to a stranger that offer just dead air. The actual ending of the film is facile rather than clever, though not unpleasant.People also complain that "Paradise" has a bit of a body count, and fails as comedy for that. But "Ladykillers" and "Coronets" had even higher body counts, which didn't stop them from being great. "Captain's Paradise" falls a wee bit short of greatness, but it's quite satisfying in the whole of its various parts, especially for those who like their Guinness with a little spice.

I had never seen this comedy nominated in the 1953 Academy Awards for for best screenplay. The previous comments echo most of my on sentiments. The cast includes Sebastian Cabot in a minor role. It is a show case for Ginnness's versatility. His dance sequneces are amazing. The whole ensemble is is excellent. And the two wives are perfectly cast.This classic Gunness comedy is included as a bonus film in Anchor Bays boxed set of DVDs, THE GUNNESS COLLECTION, which includes the five Ealing Studio Comedies, "Kind Hearts & Coronets", "The Lavender Hill Mob", The Man in the Whtie Suit" and "The Lady Killers". Amazon has the set for around $35...got to be one of the best bargain sets around.