The Captain’s Paradise (1953)

Directed by Anthony Kimmins

In this film (The Captain’s Paradise, part of the Alec Guinness Collection), Alec Guinness is a ferry boat captain who moves back and forth between Gibraltar and Tangiers.

We learn through other characters he has spent his life looking for the perfect existence; the dream life. (Once again, this is a film about a middle-class man’s fantasies.)

As it turns out, he has found it: a wife (Celia Johnson) in Gibraltar and a mistress in Tangiers. He scrupulously keeps them separate and for years as he lives two lives. In Gibraltar he is the picture of British domestication, going “beddie-byes” every night at ten following hot cocoa.

In Tangiers, he is the opposite – a rake, a lover, a party-going playboy with an exotic, sexy mistress (Yvonne de Carlo).

However, this is essentially a morality tale dressed up as a comedy. So his perfect life can’t last forever because it has consequences. In this case, they are the result of the women in his life who are deceived in order for Guinness to maintain his secret life. Both become dissatisfied because neither gets the whole man – each just gets a part. The wife wants a man who is more lively, less dull. The mistress wants a more domestic life; a man who stays home and provides some domestic comfort.

But Guinness’ character won’t have this. To keep his perfect life, each woman must stay in her place, playing her role. And even as Guinness is the object of admiration of other men who envy his secret, perfect life, that life unravels.

As with many of the other films in the Alec Guinness Collection, his character has to face the consequences. But once more, there is an equivocal quality to the ending. While losing, he somehow wins.

Among the many great performances in The Captain’s Paradise, both Yvonne de Carlo as the mistress and Charles Goldner as the admiring Chief Officer Ricco stand out. (His face looks remarkably like Giancarlo Giannini in its expressions.)

The Alec Guinness Collection:

• Kind Hearts & Coronets
• Lavender Hill Mob
• The Man in the White Suit
• The Captain’s Paradise
• The Ladykillers