The Captain's Paradise is a 1953 British comedy film produced and directed by Anthony Kimmins, and starring Alec Guinness, Yvonne De Carlo and Celia Johnson.

He learns that Henry, the prosperous owner and skipper of the ship, ferried passengers regularly between Gibraltar and North Africa.

In flashback, we witness Henry St. James keeping two separate relationships: (1) In Morocco, he lives with his lover, Nita – a young, tempestuous woman, 23 years younger than himself.

(2) In Gibraltar, he shares his life with Maud – his devoted wife, 15 years his junior – living a respectable, sober existence, and going to bed every night no later than ten.

On board his ship, he rejects all female company, choosing intellectual discussions with male passengers at his Captain's table.

This leads to Ricco, up until then believing Nita to be the captain's wife, discovering that the true Mrs. St. James lives in Gibraltar.

Ricco assists St. James in maintaining the deception when Maud flies to Morocco and by chance meets Nita.

According to Yvonne De Carlo, when she was offered her role by director Anthony Kimmins, she agreed to do it if Alec Guinness played the lead.

[7] Alec Guinness had a contract with Alex Korda to make one film a year – his casting was announced in Variety in October 1952.

Then there's the conversational, man-to-man side... And naturally we stay tongue in cheek throughout so we don't expect to wreck any homes.

A line referring to Guinness' character as a "saint" was cut, and an epilogue added to the end which stated the film was only a fairytale.

A Variety article in January 1954 said: Rising popularity of Britain's Alec Guinness among U. S. pic audiences is reflected in the fact that... [the film] is expected to outgross all that has gone before it... it has grossed $350,000 so far in 29 dates and is being helped along also by its much publicized difficulties with both the Production Code and local censors.

[20]In April 1954, Variety observed: Guinness films have usually won praise from the key-city critics but until now had limited pull beyond the "art" circuit.

Pic... figures to ring up $1,000,000 in theatre rentals in the U. S. and Canada..."Paradise" has chalked up $630,000 in distribution loot in less than 1,500 dates.

[21] In the Winter 2022/3 edition of The UK's Media Education Journal Colin McArthur in an essay 'Unacknowledged Parable of (de)Colonialisation' he explores the film in terms of its 'serious account of the inevitability of decolonialisation.