A nobleman vows to avenge the death of his father by the hands of pirates. To this end, he infiltrates the pirate band; Acting in character, he single-handedly captures a merchant vessel, but things are complicated when he finds that there is a beautiful young woman of royal blood aboard.
18 Jan The Black Pirate (1926)
Archetypical?
Many folks believe in the archetype, the notion that deep in the structure of the universe — deeper than we can reach — are certain pure models. There are few of them; they are crisp if not fully definable. And we spend our lives moving fey copies of them around in the patterns they allow.
I don’t buy that. At least so far as humans, we make our models and since about the time of this movie, movies are where most of them are made. But they stick, some of them, as if God made it so. Because this is something of an exemplar, it is required viewing I suppose.
The demure princess (redheaded). The privileged young duke who assumes the role of pirate to seek revenge. Amazing exploits through cunning and some of the most impressive physical stunts on film.
Colour when it mattered. Romantic love, not invented here, but here first successfully placed in the heroic context of piracy. Rarely can you place your finger on a node of archetypical history and say here, here is where that was born.
In keeping with a tradition of recommended pairings, I suggest you see this coupled with Geena Davis in “Cutthroat Island.”
Posted in 2006
Ted’s Evaluation — 3 of 3: Worth watching.
Need to update this per “the”
No Comments