Captain Horatio Hornblower 1951 Trailer Captain Horatio Hornblower (a.k.a. Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. in the UK, "R.N." standing for "Royal Navy") is a 1951 British naval swashbuckling war film in Technicolor from Warner Bros., produced by Gerry Mitchell, directed by Raoul Walsh, that stars Gregory Peck, Virginia Mayo, Robert Beatty and Terence Morgan. The film is based on three of C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novels: The Happy Return (1937), A Ship of the Line (1938), and Flying Col