We’re a good four months away from Talk Like a Pirate Day, which comes on September 19th. Today, though, let’s jump the gun with a look at a buccaneer film which premiered 50 years ago and is being released on Blu-ray this week. The aptly-titled Swashbuckler didn’t exactly make waves at the box office. Truth be told, the 1976 Universal release sank quicker than a leaky man-o’-war during a typhoon. But did it deserve this fate?
Much like ships riding waves on a turbulent sea, pirate movies have had their ups and downs. The 1920s and ’30s saw them take off thanks to such charismatic corsairs as Douglas Fairbanks (The Black Pirate) and Errol Flynn (Captain Blood). There was a ’50s revival fueled by adventure yarns starring Robert Newton (Treasure Island) and Burt Lancaster (The Crimson Pirate). By the 1970s, however, the genre had fallen out of favor with audiences. Two factors led Universal to attempt a revival. The popularity of 1973’s The Three Musketeers and its sequel the following year showed studios that lighthearted actioners could be successful. And Robert Shaw delighted moviegoers as the crusty Captain Quint in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster 1975 megahit Jaws.
Thus Shaw was piped aboard Swashbuckler to star as Captain “Red” Ned Lynch, whose boat prowls the waters off 1710s Jamaica (Coincidentally, the actor played an 18th-century privateer in a 1956-57 British TV series, The Buccaneers). Ned, his right-hand man Nick Debrett (James Earl Jones), and his cutlass-wielding crew take a break from looting unwary ships and wreaking havoc in local taverns. Instead, they are called into service by the daughter (Genevieve Bujold) of the deposed Jamaican governor, helping her overthrow the corrupt usurper (Peter Boyle) who’s imprisoned her father. There are plenty of hairbreadth escapes (including a great opening scene where Shaw saves Jones from the gallows) and some elaborate swordplay. There’s also the requisite romance between aristocratic heroine Bujold and roguish anti-hero Shaw, not unlike Princess Leia and Han Solo in the Star Wars films.
Based on Paul Wheeler’s story “The Scarlet Buccaneer” and helmed by journeyman director James Goldstone, Swashbuckler is an entertaining if pedestrian entry in the pirate film logbook. The actors all approach their roles with dedication and a sense of fun, even if Boyle seems miscast as an effete English aristocrat. As for supporting players, they include Beau Bridges as a Royal Navy officer named Major Folly (!) who’s trying to catch Ned, Geoffrey Holder as an expert knife-thrower, and Anjelica Huston in a dialogue-free turn as the Woman of Dark Visage. Sharp-eyed viewers will catch Sid Haig and Avery Schreiber among Shaw’s crew.
It’s not a bad movie, but Swashbuckler was blown out of the water when it opened in July of 1976. In a summer season dominated by such hits as The Omen, Silent Movie, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and even Logan’s Run, the film earned less than half its $8 million budget and was considered a flop. It did have its supporters among the critics, one being (Jolly?) Roger Ebert. Johnny Depp and Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, after all, were still three decades in the future.
My favorite Swashbuckler memory, though, came a couple of years later. In 1979 we showed it at the medium-sized Mid-Atlantic university where I ran the weekend campus film program. Once again it was, sadly, not a success. But we did get several theatrical one-sheets to promote it. The 27″ x 41″ poster, with Shaw swinging across at his “scarlet buccaneer-y” best, caught everyone’s eye and became a hot commodity when we gave them away at the next film committee meeting. There were also some rather dull posters for The China Syndrome which no one cared about. Thus began our group’s mantra: It’s better to have a good one-sheet for a not-so-hot movie than a not-so-hot one-sheet for a good movie.