The Sea Hawk (1940)
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Dashing pirate Geoffrey Thorpe plunders Spanish ships for Queen Elizabeth I and falls in love with Dona Maria, a beautiful Spanish royal he captures.
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What critics compared The Sea Hawk to
Part "Flash Gordon," part "Adventures of Robin Hood," with John Williams´ music inspired by things like "The Sea Hawk," the cliff-hanger situations and hairbreadth escapes of "Star Wars" are not only fun in their own right, they would be the precursors of the "Indiana Jones" series to come.
The movie, of course, pokes good-natured fun at its famous predecessors, things like Doug Fairbanks's "The Black Pirate" (1926) and Errol Flynn's "Captain Blood" (1935) and "The Sea Hawk" (1940).
The result is a great adventure film that can stand on its own merits alongside such genre classics as The Black Pirate, Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk, while bringing something very new to the table.
If you've seen any of the great swashbucklers of the Errol Flynn era, such as "Captain Blood" or "The Sea Hawk," it will feel as good as, but no better than, any of them.
The biggest drawback I found in the film was its inability to satisfy fully the demands of being an outright swashbuckler like "The Adventures of Robin Hood" or "The Sea Hawk" or a straightforward epic in the tradition of "Spartacus" or "Lawrence of Arabia."
The economy, clarity, and muscular force of Curtiz’s imagery shines when compared to Peter Weir’s oft-confusing spatial relationships between men and ships in Master and Commander .