THE SEA HAWK (1940)

Errol Flynn at the peak of his career. Although I liked him better in the earlier ROBIN HOOD and THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE, he is in good form here. I don't know much about British history, so I may have some of the plot details muddled. The movie is set during the reign of Elizabeth I; Flynn plays a privateer, a pirate who works at least partly to protect British interests at sea, though he and his band of men still plunder the ships they board. They take over a Spanish ship carrying a diplomat (Claude Rains) and his niece (Brenda Marshall), free the ill-treated slaves who row the ship, and take Rains to the Queen. Flynn and Marshall fall in love, of course. Flynn and his men then undertake work for the Queen in Panama, but must do so without any offical recognition (like the Mission: Impossible team!). In Panama, they are captured by the Spanish and stumble upon news of the coming attack of the Spanish Armada against England. Flynn and his men, stuck in chains, manage to take over the ship and Flynn tries to make it to the Queen in time to warn her about the Armada.

Flynn is practically the whole show here, handsome, dashing, heroic, and cocky. He and Marshall make a nice couple, though they don't really share much screen time. Flora Robson is great as Queen Elizabeth; she almost steals the show from Flynn. Her final speech is a great example of the not-so-subtle pro-British propaganda that Warners was putting into their films during the early days of WWII while the US was still supposedly neutral. Rains is fine, as always, as are the usual Warners supporting players. Special mention should be made of Henry Daniell as the treacherous Lord Wolfingham, Una O'Connor as Marshall's companion, and Alan Hale as Flynn's trusty sidekick. The Panama scenes are all tinted in a yellow-sepia tone. Michael Curtiz directed, and I'm firmly convinced that he has not received the praise due to him. He wasn't a great stylist or maybe even a great artist, but he could entertain, and there are quite a few memorable scenes here, including the uprising of the enslaved crew and the climactic sword fight between Flynn and Daniell (though it's marred a bit by some awkward use of speeded-up footage). The print that Turner Classic Movies showed was not in very good shape, with some speckling and splices; I don't know if the VHS release is any better. [TCM]