Ahoy, mateys. What’s a summer without a pirate movie these days? Shiver me timbers, the scalawags in Hollywood have a new buccaneer bonanza coming our way! Plus, it doesn’t star Johnny Depp and cost $200 million to produce.
It’s The Pirates: Band of Misfits from the folks at Aardman Animation, the British company that gave us the Wallace and Grommit films, Arthur Christmas and Chicken Run.
In the rollicking The Pirates: Band of Misfits, Captain Pirate (voiced by Hugh Grant), the leader of a group of high sea scavengers, desperately wants to win the annual “Pirate of the Year” contest. Facing tough competition from the likes of Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek), Captain Pirate and his mates (who include a transvestite pirate) get embroiled in a plot involving Charles Darwin (David Tennant of “Dr. Who” fame), Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) and a dodo bird.
Entitled Pirates!: Adventures with Scientists in Europe, the film is Aardman’s first 3-D effort and was shot using painstaking stop-motion animation true to the style of the Wallace and Grommit films—not entirely comprised of the computer-generated images common in most animated films these days. This adds a quirky, old-fashioned feel to the proceedings. Pirates: Band of Misfits is filled with a multitude of sight gags and snappy dialogue that works on two levels, pleasing to adults and kids alike.
Also drawing attention are several other pirate-themed projects in various stages of development. Treasure Island, a British TV movie adaptation, is coming to DVD with Eddie Izzard as Long John Silver; Jake and The Neverland Pirates amuses the youngsters on the Playhouse Disney Channel; Dreamworks is developing an adventure about Blackbeard from an idea by entrepreneur/pirate obsessive Pat Croce; two more Pirates of the Caribbean films from Disney starring Depp are in the pre-production stage; and Captain Phillips, the true story of Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) who encountered Somali pirates while on the high seas with the ship Maersk Alabama, will see release in theaters March 2013 under the direction of Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum).
All of this pirate talk makes us want to take a look back at some of cinema’s greatest swashbucklers, pirate films that keep delivering the thrills and spills over the years, again and again. Please let us know what your favorite buccaneer bonanzas are as you plunder—er, ponder– our list, me bucko:
The Black Pirate (1926; director: Albert Parker): One of the first films shot in the three-strip Technicolor process is a rousing yarn with Douglas Fairbanks at his athletic best, playing a young man who seeks revenge on the scurrilous sea dogs who pillaged his ship. He dons the disguise of the Black Pirate and attempts to stop the plunderers while saving a princess (Billie Dove) they have captured.
Action Scene to Remember: There are actually several of them: a boat fire, rambunctious swordfighting and more, but the scene where Doug takes on an entire ship by himself—zipping between crows’ nests, ropes and masts, slicing sails with a knife and scaling the bow of an ornate galleon—is something to behold.
Well, Shiver Me Timbers: Donald Crisp (National Velvet, How Green Was My Valley), the Oscar-winning character actor who plays the Scottish pirate McTavish in the film, was originally going to direct, but a falling out with star-producer Fairbanks led to his dismissal behind the camera. Albert Parker, who later started a successful talent agency, took over the assignment.
Treasure Island (1934; director: Victor Fleming): Robert Louis Stevenson’s oft-filmed classic about young Jim Hawkins (played by Jackie Cooper) and loot-seeking buccaneer supreme Long John Silver (Wallace Beery) is given the grand MGM treatment, the first talkie translation of the story following five (!) silent versions. Hey, we love Robert Newton, Charlton Heston and Orson Welles, but Beery– with his pegged-leg, smooth talk, parrot on his shoulder and surprising multi-dimensional performance, takes the cinematic cake…and treasure.
Action Scene to Remember: There’s not a lot of swordplay here, but the scene where unpredictable hermit Ben Gunn (Charles “Chic” Sale) helps Jim, Captain Smollet (Lewis Stone) and company to battle the pirates and mutinous Long John silver stands out as a goodie.
Well, Shiver Me Timbers: Beery was originally cast as Israel Hinds in the now-lost 1930 version of Treasure Island, directed by Maurice Tourneur and released by Paramount. He was replaced, however, by Joseph Singleton.
Captain Blood (1935; director: Michael Curtiz): Errol Flynn announces himself the new “King of the Swashbucklers” with this tale of physician Peter Blood, imprisoned for treating an injured rebel during the reign of King James II, and sent to Jamaica where he is slated to be sold into slavery. After treating the governor’s gout, Blood and other prisoners become pirates after Spanish buccaneers attack the area. Later, Blood proves himself worthy of England’s acceptance when the king is ousted and the pirate and his crew battle enemy ships from France. Blood finally settles down with his beloved Arabella (Olivia De Havilland), niece of a plantation owner (Lionel Atwill).
Action Scene to Remember: Flynn and French pirate Basil Rathbone’s sword duel to the death.
Well, Shiver Me Timbers! Captain Blood was released in theaters just six weeks after another classic seafaring saga, MGM’s Mutiny on the Bounty with Clark Gable and Charles Laughton.
The Sea Hawk (1940; director: Michael Curtiz): Flynn and Curtiz (along with composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold) once again tackle pirate lore and hit the target once more. Cool Errol is Captain Geoffrey Thorpe, one of the “sea hawks,” a group of privateers who take over enemy ships. Thorpe and his men carry out their deeds in the name of England, although it is against the wishes of Queen Elizabeth I (Flora Robson). Upon taking a Spanish galleon, Thorpe discovers, and falls in love with, the beautiful niece (Brenda Marshall) of a treacherous Spanish ambassador (Claude Rains). Before he can settle down with her, he must win her over, head to Panama to fight the Spaniards, lead a daring escape from a galleon where he and his men are imprisoned and halt a conspiracy against the Queen.
Action Scene to Remember: There’s lots of impressive, large-scale mayhem here, but the encounter between Thorpe and Wolfingham (Henry Daniell) is classic stuff (even though extras were extensively used).
Well, Shiver Me Timbers!: Although lavishly budgeted at close to $2 million, Warner Brothers decided to have the film shot in black-and-white in order for stock footage of an earlier version of The Sea Hawk and other films to blend in better on-screen. However, the studio later tinted the scenes set in Panama for a photographic effect.
The Princess and the Pirate (1944; director: David Butler): Bob Hope provides some great laughs in the fractured farce in which he plays Sylvester the Great, a third-rate entertainer, who finds himself on a ship with Princess Margaret (Virginia Mayo), who is fleeing her home because of an arranged marriage to a scalawag called “The Hook” (Victor McLaglen). All of the principals eventually land on an island overseen by a corrupt governor (Walter Slezak). Gorgeous sets lushly captured with Technicolor photography, a supporting cast that also include a really weird Walter Brennan, Mike Mazurzki and Hugo Haas, hilarious, often anachronistic Hope-isms from Bob, and a surprise guest appearance in the finale make this a swash worth buckling.
Action Scene to Remember: There are some sea battles here, but most of the action is in the zippy dialogue and self-conscious asides from Hope and company.
Well, Shiver Me Timbers: Hope was under contract to Paramount at the time the film was made, so Goldwyn paid handsomely for the loan-out. He made this film and They Got Me Covered with Dorothy Lamour.
Captain Kidd (1945; director: Rowland V. Lee): You pretty much can’t go wrong with Charles Laughton in anything, and the role of sly sea scalawag Captain William Kidd in this low-budget independent production was perfectly tailored to his talents. Put the facts aside for a few hours and enjoy the tale of Kidd and how he seeks treasure and power as he dupes King William III into letting him command a galleon and take prisoners as his crew in order to retrieve treasure. Along with Laughton, the rogue’s gallery of great actors here includes Randolph Scott, John Carradine, Gilbert Roland, Reginald Owen, Barbara Britten and Sheldon Leonard. Laughton enjoyed the buccaneer routine so much he played the role again in Abbott & Costello Meet Captain Kidd seven years later.
Action Scene to Remember: There are a few sea battles, but the fight between Laughton and Scott towards the film’s end is probably the most action-filled sequence in this effort.
The Crimson Pirate (1952; director: Robert Siodmak): Burt Lancaster called on some of the physical talents he acquired when he was a circus acrobat to play Captain Vallo, a buccaneer who plays both sides of the fence “Yojimbo”-style while taking booty and valuable prisoners in a daring Caribbean sea raid. After falling for a rebel leader’s daughter (Eva Bartok) and aided by a mute sidekick named Ojo (Nick Cravat), Vallo proceeds to halt the treacherous rebel catcher Baron Gruda (Lesley Bradley) before they are taken prisoner.
Action Scene to Remember: There’s lots of high-flying derring-do and comic moments here, but we particularly like the initial raid on Gruda’s ship led by Lancaster.
Well, Shiver Me Timbers: Cravat, Lancaster’s long-time pal and former circus partner, doesn’t talk because of his heavy Brooklyn accent. A co-star with Lancaster in eight other films, Cravat also played the frightening gremlin in the memorable episode of The Twilight Zone called “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet” with William Shatner.
Peter Pan (1953; directors: Clyde Geromini, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske): The saga of “The Boy Who Never Grew Up” who fought Captain Hook started life as a play, was filmed as a silent movie and later was essayed in a famous TV version with Mary Martin. But we always go back to Disney’s classic feature because it’s exciting, gorgeously animated, features a terrific soundtrack (that includes “A Pirate’s Life” and “Second Star to the Right”) and offers an unusual love triangle between Wendy, the British gal from London who is whisked to Neverland, and Tinkerbell, the miniature fairy, both of whom love Peter Pan. In the pirate department, there’s memorable Disney villain Captain Hook, voiced by Hans Conreid, a genuinely nasty sea scamp with a hooked hand, and his sidekick Mr. Smee. It’s all great stuff, although the racial stereotyping of Native-Americans—called “Injuns” here and spotlighted in the song “What Makes the Redman Red”—must be overlooked.
Action Scene to Remember: A battle aboard Hook’s ship the Jolly Roger, with help from Jane and Tinkerbell helping to set Peter Pan free, leading to Hook falling overboard and being chased by the crocodile who has haunted him for years.
Well, Shiver Me Timbers: For years it was rumored that Marilyn Monroe was the inspiration for Tinkerbell, but that distinction belongs to Margaret Kerry, a talented actress, mime and dancer. She also contributed the voice of the red-headed mermaid in Peter Pan.
The Buccaneer (1958; director: Anthony Quinn): The heavily fictionalized account of the relationship between American commander Andrew Jackson (Charlton Heston) and pirate Jean Lafitte (Yul Brynner) may be light on historical detail but is a terrific popcorn picture, directed by Anthony Quinn and produced by his then-father-in-law Cecil B. DeMille. The background is the War of 1812, when Jackson gets a surprise ally in the form of LaFitte and his men for strategy and to fight the British in the Battle of New Orleans.
Action Scene to Remember: It’s short but effective: The motley American forces and their pirate militia tackle the polished British troops as Congreve rockets—the inspiration for the line of “And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air” from the bombardment of Fort McHenry—explode amidst the fighting.
Well, Shiver Me Timbers: DeMille, who made an earlier version of the film in 1938 starring Frederic March, was ill when the film was made and enlisted Quinn (who had an early role in the March version) to direct. Quinn had suggested that filmmaker Budd Boeticher take the directorial reins. The film was eventually released in theaters a month after DeMille’s death.
A High Wind in Jamaica (1964; director: Alexander MacKendrick): Anthony Quinn return to the high seas landscape with this fascinating adventure yarn. He plays “The Buccaneer” this time, Captain Chavez, who, along with first mate Zac (James Coburn) and his crew, inadvertently run into child passengers on a boat they commandeer. A complex relationship develops between the captain and a young, British girl Emily (Deborah Baxter) that puts them both on the spot when the surviving children and ocean bandits return to England.
Action Scene to Remember: There’s more drama than action here, A High Wind in Jamaica does offer a devastating impressive hurricane hitting Jamaica in the beginning of the film and an attack by Spanish-speaking pirates on the ship carrying the children.
Well, Shiver Me Timbers: The film was once planned as a vehicle for John Mills (playing Quinn’s part) and his daughter Hayley Mills (in the Baxter role). In fact, some critics have compared ten-year-old Baxter’s bravura performance to the work of a young Mills.
Are there any pirate films missing from our list that you can recommend?