Captain Blood really re-invigorated the swashbuckler genre. The previous era of swashbucklers had been made in the 1920’s when full size ships were more the style than the use of miniatures. In fact this film borrowed some footage from the silent movie Sea Hawk made in 1924. The miniature work is energetic with impressive scenes of splintering hulls and spars, setting the bar for the classic pirate films to follow. Fred Jackman was the special effects supervisor. He was the head of Warner Brothers special effects department but left around this time to start his own independent special effects company.
