The Sea Hawk

Five years after Captain Blood made him a swashbuckling star, Errol Flynn returned to the high seas, playing privateer Captain Thorpe in The Sea Hawk (1940). Flynn’s dashing gentleman pirate is a dedicated patriot, looting Spanish ships to fill English coffers with the private blessing of Queen Elizabeth I (Flora Robson). The film opens with a rousing sea battle: broadside cannon fire sends masts falling and splinters flying before Flynn’s army scrambles aboard like a swarm of hornets, filling the screen with flashing cutlasses, clashing bodies on deck, and a sky full of pirates swinging into battle on ropes. The fearless Thorpe becomes a stumbling schoolboy when he falls for the Spanish Ambassador’s niece, Doña Maria (Brenda Marshall), but is back in his element when he sails to the New World for treasure and lands in the middle of a deadly conspiracy. Big-eyed beauty Marshall stands in for Flynn’s usual love interest, Olivia de Havilland, and the film misses the latter’s sass and spirit, but it’s a minor shortcoming. Claude Rains plays his usual smoothly conniving villain, while hearty Alan Hale Sr.—who played Little John to Flynn’s Robin Hood—returns as the loyal sidekick. Michael Curtiz proves once again why he was Warner Brothers’ top director in this handsome, action-packed film that mixes intrigue and suspense with grand set pieces, concluding with a rousing series of escapes, chases, and a runaway swordfight. Extras include the archival featurette "The Sea Hawk: Flynn in Action" and the "Warner Night at the Movies 1940" program (with a newsreel, short, and cartoon). Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)