I remember enjoying this as a kid watching it on Bill Collins back in the day - even though I'd never read the book, you could feel it was adapted from one: a prologue leading to the birth of a title character, scenes of his childhood (including meeting a childhood sweetheart), adventures in exotic climes, a nemesis, rags to riches, etc, etc. It remains enjoyable if you can handle some melodramatic over the top acting.
It gets off to a strong start with Anita Louise married to nasty Claude Rains but in love with Louis Hayward (in the role that got him noticed in Hollywood), which results in Rains killing Hayward in a duel and Louise dying in childbirth. The resulting kid is dumped with nuns, and falls for a fellow girl. He then grows up to be the not very exciting Frederic March (I wish they'd cast Errol Flynn), though the girl is the delightful and charming Olivia de Havilland.
There's a very good support cast: Donald Woods as a random best friend, Edmund Gwenn as a kindly benefactor (very coincidentally March's real grandfather), Steffi Duna as a brown face native girl who has hot pants for March, Akim Tamiroff hamming it up outrageously as a slave trader. Most of all there are Claude Rains and Gale Sondergaard as a pair of villains.
I really like Eric Wolfgang Korngold's score and several of the scenes remain etched in my memory: March meeting his son, realising de Havilland has become Napleon's mistress, March talking to his son and them going away together, the death of Hayward. It badly misses a come uppance for Rains and Sondergaard.
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