By 1945, and after a string of solid WWII propaganda pieces, Errol Flynn’s hold over U.S. box office had started to decline so, in spite of the increased burden of waning looks, he embarked on a series of films pertaining to that genre which had earlier made his name: the swashbuckler. The first of these was a good one actually – ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN (1948) – but it also proved to be his last big-budget Hollywood starring vehicle. The rest of his sword-wielding days were spent wandering all over Europe: in England for KIM (1950), THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE (1953) and THE DARK AVENGER (1955), in France for ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN FABIAN (1951) and Italy for the aborted THE STORY OF WILLIAM TELL (1953) and the little-seen CROSSED SWORDS (1954). However, Hollywood did beckon him one last time to his old seafaring ways – albeit for a modestly-budgeted Universal picture rather than a Warner Brothers ‘A’ production to which he had been accustomed when at his peak…
Still, the glorious Technicolor cinematography leaps off the screen here and, while an older and flabbier Flynn may look like the pale shadow of his former self, his red-headed leading lady Maureen O’Hara has a field day as a tomboyish buccaneer leader who deep down craves romance and wants to be treated like a lady. Anthony Quinn was still a few years away from his larger-than-life starring vehicles, so here he is typically seen as the baddie – the pirate captain Roc Brasiliano, a role he attacks with gusto. Like THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH (1954) – a viewing of which preceded this one – AGAINST ALL FLAGS takes me back to my cherished childhood days of constant TV viewing when vintage Hollywood movies were the order of the day on both the local and neighboring Italian channels.
For all I know, this might well have been the very first pirate movie I’ve ever seen and I cringe at the thought of today’s generation of youngsters supposedly believing that the grossly overblown PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN trilogy is what buccaneering is all about! As I said earlier, AGAINST ALL FLAGS might not be the finest pirate yarn ever brought to the screen but it’s a solid example of this prolific genre all the same. Nowadays, the amorous persistence of the child-like Indian princess (Alice Kelley) towards her pirate captor Flynn may strike one as being awfully silly but the rest of it – despite clearly not scaling the heights of THE SEA HAWK (1940) and THE BLACK SWAN (1942), to mention the finest seafaring ventures of its respective stars – is briskly paced and reasonably engaging. Incidentally, the film would later go on to be remade as THE KING’S PIRATE (1967) with Doug McClure!
For what it’s worth, the unprecedented box office success of that unappetizing modern franchise is most probably what induced reluctant movie studios to dust off their catalogue swashbuckling titles and release them on DVD and, as a matter of fact, AGAINST ALL FLAGS itself was the one gem in a poorly-thought out “Pirates Of The Golden Age Movie Collection” set from Universal which also consisted of obscure dross like BUCCANEER’S GIRL (1950; with Yvonne De Carlo), DOULE CROSSBONES (1951; with Donald O’Connor) and YANKEE BUCCANEER (1952; with Jeff Chandler)! Value for money, perhaps but, so far, I have only acquired the Errol Flynn flick from other sources; even so, if the mood strikes me in future, I might wish to lay my hands on similar marine adventures like Edward Dmytyk’s MUTINY (1952), the afore-mentioned YANKEE BUCCANEER and PIRATES OF TORTUGA (1961).
