It remains a mystery to me that 1942's The Black Swan exists and that people don't seem especially interested in it. I watched it again a few days ago. For my money, it's a better movie than Errol Flynn's pirate movies. Certainly it surpasses The Crimson Pirate or any number of other pirate films that get talked about.
I love how the beginning of the movie feels like the climax to another movie we didn't get to see. We catch up with Tyrone Power, Thomas Mitchell, George Sanders, and a host of ravenous buccaneers storming a Spanish fortress. First Power is caught and put on the rack, then the tables are turned and the Spanish governor gets a stretch. And then the daughter of an English diplomat turns out to be there and it's Maureen O'Hara.
Power as the pirate Jamie Waring without hesitation pins her to a wall and tries to kiss her. This follows from a scene where he and Sanders, as the pirate Billy Leech, got drunk over the prone bodies of two bound girls in their shifts. Why does Jamie become the hero and Leech the villain? Tyrone Power is handsomer? It's as good an answer as any for this totally amoral film.
How did this movie get made in the era of the Hays Code? I really don't get it.
It's perfectly cast, too. In addition to the four excellent folks I mentioned, Laird Cregor gives us the best screen depiction of the famous pirate Henry Morgan.
As in real life, he's appointed to the governorship of Jamaica. In the film we see he's plagued by petty backstabbing from government men who led more respectable lives. I wonder if the film was sold as some kind of precursor to the American revolution. Maybe pirates were just generally presumed to be exceptions to the rules.
Special effects and cinematography are top notch in this film, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment