The Spanish Main is a 1945 American adventure film starring Paul Henreid, Maureen O'Hara, Walter Slezak and Binnie Barnes, and directed by Frank Borzage.

Though a box-office hit upon its first release, the film is chiefly remembered today for its lavish and intricate score by Hanns Eisler.

Over time Francisca and Van Horn become attracted to each other and set out to defeat the villainous governor Don Juan Alvarado and treacherous pirates Du Billar and Capt.

He said he was "getting tired of being cast as the suave ladies' man and I had definitely decided no more Nazis so I started thinking in terms of something that would be more fun, a swashbuckling part in a pirate story.

Henreid had an existing commitment with RKO to make one film a year dating from his appearance in Joan of Paris, so he decided to take the movie there.

[10] In October 1943, RKO announced the film would be their big spectacle of the following year, to star Paul Henreid, Maureen O'Hara, George Sanders and Walter Slezak.

It was based on an original story and script by Aneas MacKenzie[11] By the end of the month, Sanders was out and replaced by Arturo de Córdova with Robert Fellows to produce.

[12] Henreid said RKO assigned script writing duties to George Worthing Yates but when the actor read the first hundred pages "I hated all of it.

[24] Henreid says the finale of the script involved a slave revolt and the burning of Tortuga, but Koerner refused to film it as it would cost an extra $200,000.