Main Cast: Alec Guinness, Yvonne De Carlo, Celia Johnson, Charles Goldner, Miles Malleson
Release Year: 1953
Country: UK
Run Time: 89 minutes
Plot
In this bright British comedy, we meet Capt. Henry St. James (Alec Guinness) as he stands before a firing squad and then learn of the curious chain of events that brought him to his fate. Henry is a ship's captain ferrying a steamer between Gibraltar and North Africa on a regular basis, and he's taken the notion of "a girl in every port" to a whole new level; he has a wife on each side of the water. In Gibraltar, there's Maude (Celia Johnson), an even-tempered housewife who keeps the house tidy and has dinner ready when Henry likes it. In North Africa, mate number two is Nita (Yvonne DeCarlo), who is a sultry fun seeker who likes to hit the nightspots and dance 'till dawn. Between the two of them, Henry would seem to have the best of both worlds; Chief Officer Ricco (Charles Goldner) openly envies Henry's remarkable romantic situation. But things start to go sour when Maude suddenly decides she's a stick in the mud and wants to start living it up, while Nita becomes a homebody and begins learning to cook; Henry is none too happy about either development, and before long he finds he has no spouse on either shore. The Captain's Paradise was trimmed from 93 to 84 minutes for its initial United States release. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
The Captain's Paradise is not one of the legendary Ealing Studios films which Alec Guinness made in the 1950's, but it's from the same era and has much the same feeling. It also is somewhat more forced and direct than the Ealing offerings, which tended to glide about a bit before landing on their comic targets. This is a forgivable shortcoming in what is otherwise a bright and engaging comedy. While modern audiences may wince at the set-up and find it too dated in terms of male-female relationships, the eventual outcome reveals that Captain's Paradise was a bit more ahead of its time than it initially seems. The Alec Coppel-Nicholas Phipps script is engaging, relying more on character comedy than lines that witty in and of themselves, and supplying enough comic situations to keep the film rolling happily along. Alec Guinness, of course, is the key player here, and without him the film would be only modest fun. He's a fully fleshed-out bounder, and he pulls all the right strings to make the audience alternately go along with and laugh at him. The always-dependable Celia Johnson is a delight, making the most of her chances to let herself go, and Yvonne DeCarlo is a believable sexpot with homebody leanings. All in all, Captain's Paradise is great fun. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Peter Bull - Kalikan Officer; Tutte Lemkow - Principal Dancer; Ann Heffernan - Daphne Bligh; Walter Crisham - Bob; Robert A'Dair - 3rd Customs Official; Joss Ambler - Prof. Ebbart; Michael Balfour - 2nd Customs Official; Joyce Barbour - Mrs. Reid; George Benson - Salmon; Sebastian Cabot - Ali; Roger Delgado - Kalikan Policeman; Bill Fraser - Absalom; Claudia Gray - Susan Dailey; Andrea Malandrinos - Maitre d'Hotel; Ferdy [Ferdinand] Mayne - Sheikh; Ambrosine Phillpotts - Marjorie; Nicholas Phipps - Major; Victor Fairley - Customs Official; Catherina Ferraz - Shopowner; Arthur Gomez - Chief Steward; Henry Longhurst - Prof. Killick; Bernard Rebel - Mr. Wheeler; Armando Guinle - Chief Engineer; Roy Purcell - Officer of the Watch; Alejandro Martinez - Guitarist
Credit
Paul Sheriff - Art Director, Walter Crisham - Choreography, Tutte Lemkow - Choreography, Julia Squire - Costume Designer, Bridget Sellers - Costume Designer, Jack Causey - First Assistant Director, Anthony Kimmins - Director, Gerald Turney-Smith - Editor, Malcolm Arnold - Composer (Music Score), Muir Mathieson - Musical Direction/Supervision, George Partleton - Makeup, Peter Newbrook - Camera Operator, Edward Scaife - Cinematographer, Sydney Streeter - Production Manager, Anthony Kimmins - Producer, Alec Coppel - Screenwriter, Nicholas Phipps - Screenwriter
Captain Henry St. James (Alec Guinness), 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 which leads to his second in command, Ricco, discovering the existence of both wives something that the Captain had concealed from his crew. Ricco agrees to assist St. James in mantaining 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 can 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.
