A few years ago, I read Chris Schweizer's Crogan Adventures: Catfoot's Vengeance set during the days of Caribbean piracy. I recognized some elements from the Captain Blood stories by Rafael Sabatini. Meeting Chris at the American Library Association National Conference in 2015, we chatted about the novelist and his works. I've purchased a few pieces from Chris over time including a Porco Rosso movie-poster-style piece. When Chris opened up his commission list for movie poster pieces, I knew this was the right subject for him.

     My brother Stuart and I love the Errol Flynn movie as well as The Sea Hawk and The Adventures of Robin Hood. We discovered them in the days before home video when they showed up at odd times on broadcast television. As boys, we saw the actual miniature ship props at a shopping mall in Hayward, CA. I think it must have been a promotional effort for the movie Tora Tora Tora as there were many of those miniature ships too. When I got to college, I prowled the used book stores in Berkeley and found the original Rafael Sabatini novels and short stories. When Stuart worked at the Warner Brothers Archive at USC, he handled the original music sheets by film composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

     In the Rafael Sabatini story, Peter Blood is trained as a doctor, but takes a naval commission under the Dutch Admiral de Ruyter for a number of years. Settling in England after his adventures, he tends to the wounded local nobleman, a leader of the Monmouth Rebellion, and is convicted of treason. The rebel/convicts are sent to be slaves on the plantations of the English colony in Jamaica. When a Spanish ship and its landing party raids Port Royal, Blood leads his fellow slaves into taking over the Cinco Llamas and turning the tables on the Spanish raiders. Already outlaws and slaves, they sail away and adopt a life of piracy.

     Chris has this original watercolor of director Michael Curtiz for sale. This is his commentary: "I was always flumuxed when I was younger that despite his having directed Casablanca, one of my very favorite films and a regular contender for the best film ever made, and nearly all of the best Errol Flynn movies (The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, Virginia City, Charge of the Light Brigade, the Sea Hawk, Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex), Michael Cutriz (born Mano Kaminer in Budapest in 1886) never seems to get the sort of recognition due to him by merit of his best projects. He gets more love now than he used to in critical circles, but he’s still hardly a household name. The original art for this one is available for sale. 8.5x11," ink on 80# stock, shipped the Tuesday after purchase. First come, first serve."

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