The Spanish Main

1945

Adventure / Drama / Romance

3
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 51% · 5 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 51% · 100 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.3/10 10 2079 2.1K

cannon swordplay arranged marriage pirate gang beautiful woman pirate

Director

Frank Borzage Photo
Frank Borzage

Top cast

Barton MacLane Photo
Barton MacLane as Capt. Benjamin Black
Walter Slezak Photo
Walter Slezak as Don Juan Alvarado
Max Wagner Photo
Max Wagner as Bully
Nancy Gates Photo
Nancy Gates as Lupita
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
926.83 MB
1280*934
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 40 min
Seeds 2
1.68 GB
1480*1080
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 40 min
Seeds 4

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by MissSimonetta 7 / 10

Henreid is fine, but Maureen O'Hara steals the show!

Reviewed by willrams 7 / 10

swashbuckler

I saw this on TV TCM today and will always enjoy the exciting story of the Spanish Main; with beautiful musical score and scenes rather well staged. Maureen O'Hara and Paul Henried are great! The scene stealer of course is that great character actor Walter Slezak, who plays a mean egocentric governor, but who gets it in the end. The duelling scenes are particularly good, and Paul Henried does a good job duelling. Binnie Barnes, who I remember so well in early films was especially great as a woman pirate
Reviewed by Bunuel1976 7 / 10

THE Spanish MAIN (Frank Borzage, 1945) ***

I had foolishly missed out quite recently on this one on late-night Italian TV and, consequently, was very glad now to get acquainted with it (albeit via a slightly washed-out print on DivX) – especially since I was surprised by its quality, making the film an underrated entry in the swashbuckling genre. Borzage was an unusual choice for this type of film – despite being a distinguished Oscar-winning director, he has become with time a largely forgotten figure but his reputation has deservedly soared of late among film connoisseurs and is now generally comparable to that of Douglas Sirk. To be sure, he is more renowned for movies like THREE COMRADES (1938) and THE MORTAL STORM (1940) rather than fluff pieces like THE Spanish MAIN, but that only goes to show how versatile he was, equally capable of handling personal projects and genre pictures.Equally unlikely was the film’s choice of leading man: Paul Henreid, playing an honest man who turns buccaneer in the face of injustice, his character is similar to that of Captain Blood (in spite of an obvious lack of emphasis on the actor’s agility) but also to Henried’s signature role of French Resistance leader Victor Laszlo in CASABLANCA (1942). This alone makes it interesting viewing but, thankfully, they’re supported by solid talent on both sides of the camera (the actors – Maureen O’Hara in her prime, an unusually but effectively cast Binnie Barnes as a hardened lady buccaneer and O’Hara’s romantic rival, splendid villainy from Walter Slezak, John Emery and Barton MacLane being equally dastardly, J.M. Kerrigan, Curt Bois and Mike Mazurki as Henreid’s sidekicks, a script co-written by CITIZEN KANE [1941]’s Herman J. Mankiewicz, magnificent color photography by George Barnes, etc).While the plot offers no real surprise or undue complexity – coming at the tail-end of WWII, it must have provided just the right dose of escapism – it’s professionally-handled entertainment (at which Hollywood excelled during its golden age) of the kind ‘they don’t make anymore’…despite the best intentions of today’s exponents!
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