The Captain's Paradise

The Captain's Paradise
Directed by	Anthony Kimmins
Produced by	Anthony Kimmins
Written by	Alec Coppel Nicholas Phipps
Narrated by	Charles Goldner
Starring	Alec Guinness Celia Johnson Yvonne De Carlo
Music by	Malcolm Arnold
Cinematography	Edward Scaife
Editing by	Gerald Turney-Smith
Distributed by	British Lion Films
Release date(s)	June 9, 1953
Running time	93 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Box office	₤146,548(UK)

The Captain's Paradise is a 1953 British comedy film starring Alec Guinness and directed by Anthony Kimmins. It is set in Gibraltar and northern Morocco, and on a ship that travels between them.

In 1958, the film was made into a Broadway musical comedy, retitled Oh, Captain!.

Plot summary

Captain Henry St. James (Alec Guinness) is in front of a firing squad and the viewer soon learns of the curious chain of events that brought him to his fate. He was a prosperous seafaring man, is a bigamist, maintaining households at either end of the route his ship takes every few days. On Gibraltar, he lives with quiet, very domestic Maud (Celia Johnson); he comes home to find his pipe and slippers ready for him, and his adoring wife in the kitchen preparing his dinner. He sits cosily in his armchair, reads the papers and relaxes. In Morocco on the other hand, his wife Nita (Yvonne de Carlo) is a hot-blooded, exotic lady, who shuns housework and prefers to be taken out to noisy, crowded restaurants, where they lead a loud and wild lifestyle.

Growing overly careless, St. James begins to make several mistakes. This leads to his second in command, Ricco (Charles Goldner), discovering the existence of both wives, something that the Captain had concealed from his crew. Ricco agrees to assist St. James in maintaining the deception and is soon called into action when on a whim Maud flies to North Africa and enjoys a chance meeting with Nita. A panicked Ricco and St. James arrange to have Maud arrested and deported before she and Nita can realise that they are in fact married to the same person. He convinces Maud that North Africa is a dangerous place and that she should never return there.

Over time, the two wives begin to change: Maud expresses a desire to go out and paint the town red, while Nita wants to stay home and cook for her man. Henry wants things to stay just the way they have been, and his attempts to maintain the status quo result in both wives leaving him for their lovers. Unfortunately, in the heat of an argument, Nita shoots and kills her lover. To spare Nita, Captain St. James claims he was the one who killed her lover.

Cast

• Alec Guinness - Captain Henry St. James
• Yvonne De Carlo - Nita
• Celia Johnson - Maud
• Charles Goldner - Chief Officer Ricco
• Walter Crisham - Bob
• Nicholas Phipps - The Major
• Joyce Barbour - Mrs Reid, the housekeeper
• Bill Fraser - Absalom
• Ambrosine Phillpotts - Marjorie
• Miles Malleson - Lawrence St. James
• Bill Fraser - Absalom (taxi driver)
• Ferdy Mayne - The Sheikh
• Sebastian Cabot - Ali (vendor)
• Peter Bull - Kalikan firing-squad officer
• Claudia Grey - Susan Dailey
• Ann Hefferman - Daphne Bligh
• Arthur Gomez - Chief steward
• George Benson - Mr. Salmon
• Bernard Rebel - Mr Wheeler

External links

• The Captain's Paradise at the Internet Movie Database
• The Captain's Paradise at the TCM Movie Database
• The Captain's Paradise at AllRovi