The Captain's Paradise

The Captain's Paradise
Directed by	Anthony Kimmins
Produced by	Anthony Kimmins
Written by	Alec Coppel Nicholas Phipps
Starring	Alec Guinness Celia Johnson Yvonne De Carlo
Music by	Malcolm Arnold
Cinematography	Edward Scaife
Edited by	Gerald Turney-Smith
Production company	London Films
Distributed by	British Lion Films (UK) Lopert Pictures Corporation United Artists (USA)
Release date	9 June 1953
Running time	93 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Box office	£146,548(UK)

The Captain's Paradise is a 1953 British comedy film starring Alec Guinness and directed by Anthony Kimmins. Guinness plays the captain of a passenger ship that travels regularly between Gibraltar and Spanish Morocco. The film begins at just before the end of the story, which is then told in a series of flashbacks.

In 1958, the story was made into a Broadway musical comedy, retitled Oh, Captain!.

In early 1950s North Africa, a man (Alec Guinness) is escorted through an angry, clamouring crowd by a platoon of soldiers. They enter a fort and it is clear that he is to be executed. The commander (Peter Bull) orders the men to line up in two rows and gives the order to fire. As the shots ring out, the scene changes to a ferry ship, the "Golden Fleece" in the docks as the passengers embark for the two days' journey to Gibraltar. Amongst the crew, there is much dismay, and the chief officer, Carlos Ricco (Charles Goldner) takes to his cabin with the clear intention of getting drunk. He is interrupted by an elderly gentleman, Lawrence St. James (Miles Malleson), who had come to speak his nephew, Captain Henry St. James on an unspecified, but urgent, matter. He is profoundly shocked to learn that the grief he had encountered on the ship is due to the death of the man he had travelled from England to see. He begs Ricco, to explain what has led to such an event. He learns that his nephew Henry was the prosperous owner and skipper of this small passenger ship which he captained as it ferried regularly to and fro between Gibraltar and Kalique, a port in North Africa.

In Morocco, he lives with his lover, Nita (Yvonne de Carlo) – a young, hot-blooded, exotic lady. She is 13 years younger than he and refers to him as "her Jimmy". He takes her out every night to expensive, fashionable restaurants and night clubs, where they lead a loud and wild lifestyle. In Gibraltar, he shares his life with Maud (Celia Johnson) – his devoting, domesticated wife, just three years his junior – living a respectable, sober existence, and going to bed every night no later than ten o'clock with their cocoa. St James gives Nita lingerie. He gives Maud a vacuum cleaner. Both are delighted. He has found a perfect existence – his paradise.