The Captain's Paradise

Alec Guinness - Capt. Henry St. James
Celia Johnson - Maud St. James
Yvonne de Carlo - Nita St. James
Charles Goldner - Chief Officer Ricco
Miles Malleson - Lawrence St. James

Alec Coppel received an Oscar nomination for this often witty and enjoyable comedy. Some seamen have a girl in every port, but charming Captain Henry St. James (Alec Guinness) has a wife in two.

The film opens as bigamist Henry stands before a firing squad, and via flashbacks we learn of the chain of events that brought him to this end. He is the captain of a steamer ferrying between Gibraltar and North Africa on a regular basis; with a contrasting wife in each port. In Kalik, Morocco, he is married to the beautiful, ever-dancing Nita (Yvonne de Carlo), and in Gibraltar, to quiet home-making Maud (Celia Johnson). The ships chief officer, Rocco (Charles Goldner), marvels at Henry’s seemingly idyllic life, but the deception begins to go awry when Nita longs to be conventional and learns to cook for Henry rather than going out to night-spots, while Maud has secret desires to desert domesticity and seek excitement on the dance floor. Ultimately, despite Henry’s resistance to their change in character, both leave him. Finally, as the film closes we return to learn Henry’s surprising fate before the firing squad.