Burt Lancaster’s tongue-in-cheek adventure, The Crimson Pirate, celebrates its seventieth birthday this year. So listen up, mates! As we will explore a classic movie that still resonates today with the gleeful merriness of swashbuckling times past. It may be showing signs of age, but they say we are only as young as we feel, and great movies like this always make us feel something. Long before Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow sailed in the Pirates of the Caribbean, a very different Captain, armed with only a smile, brought fun and frolics to the Spanish mane.
Filmed on location on the Italian island of Ischia, The Crimson Pirate has a grand and epic adventurous feel from the very start. All pre-CGI, so what you see is what you get. This was also before stringent health and safety rules so we got real pirate ships in a real sea, creating a clumsy (and probably dangerous) realism. Ironically, the tone of the whole film is exceptionally tongue-in-cheek. It pokes fun out of more serious and banal pirate movies, and bravely out of itself in the process. The Crimson Pirate parodies the genre with pirate garb that looks more like a fresh-off-a-hanger costume. A first mate that sports a hilariously weird haircut, intending for him to look deceptive and the more scrupulous pirate, and a semi-permanent topless Lancaster showing how a 1950s leading man should look.
Set in the late 18th century, pirate Captain Vallo (Lancaster), his trusty friend, Ojo (Nick Cravat), and a ragtag crew of buccaneers sail the Caribbean in search of ships to plunder. In a fast-paced plot, Vallo's adventure starts when he and his trusty mate are roped into capturing a rebel to stop a coup. The rebel leader is El Libre (Frederick Leister) and Vallo falls for his daughter, Consuelo (Eva Bartok). Consuelo is captured and is about to be forced into marriage, but Vallo, our dashing and well-spoken pirate has something to say about that, and an all-out, pirate battle ensues. The end of the movie then becomes a race against time for Captain Vallo and Ojo to save the day.
It’s easy to make fun of this movie. It’s kind of the whole point, and Lancaster would probably love you for it. At least it wasn’t one of the biggest box-office-bombs of all time, like a certain other pirate movie - Cutthroat Island. A movie that had convincing pyrotechnics but no Burt Lancaster to create a movie that we could trust. A movie that wouldn’t try so hard to be something it’s not. Lancaster has style, that’s without question, and a real captain’s flair (and of course, that constant 1950s smile.)
We would be remiss to not mention the pirate that came before Vallo - Long John Silver. The iconic Treasure Island was released two years before The Crimson Pirate. Silver was a very different pirate to Vallo. The Archetypal privateer that hobbled around on one leg, carried a parrot on his shoulder and spoke like how we all think pirates should speak. Vallo feels more like Silver's happier alter ego. Fast-forward to the turn of the twentieth century, and we have the most iconic pirate of them all - Captain Jack Sparrow.
Depp took Jack Sparrow beyond Silver's pirate intonation and wordage to another level of showmanship. Sparrow also doesn’t look miles away from Vallo either by the way he picks fights with fort guards (not actually hurting anyone), to acrobatic displays of cartoon violence. Three pirates, spanning decades apart, that are all submersed within the tropes of what we all love about pirate adventure. So it’s not such a stretch for the imagination to see why The Crimson Pirate can still be enjoyed seventy years later.
Modern-day movies are still copying Vallo and Ojo, swinging from washing lines, bouncing off tents, and acting like naughty schoolboys. Modern pirates owe a lot to Mr. Lancaster, and we owe it to him to keep one of the best pirate movies alive. And the final battle looks like Captain Jack Sparrow could make an appearance at any time. With crude-looking pirate tanks, a wobbly flamethrower, liquid explosives, and a hot-air balloon, the climactic final scenes are adventurously silly. It’s a rip-roaring end to a comical adventure that doesn’t apologize for anything.
Full of pirate clichés and sound effects from yesteryear, like a slide-whistle heard when Vallo descends a rope, makes this nostalgic adventure completely juvenile yet enjoyable. The occasional painted backdrop (when spotted) adds a timeless charm. And unlike sci-fi that continued to use backdrops into the 1980s, there’s not a shaky wall in sight. If the movie feels familiar in certain scenes, this is no surprise. Attacking ships from under the sea, walking on the sea bed under a capsized boat, or keeping true to the pirate’s code, have all been reused. In fact, Captain Vallo could easily sail the Black Pearl in Captain Jack Sparrow’s absence, and vice versa. The Crimson Pirate is a proud, loud, Saturday matinee that any demographic can enjoy.
So wish it a happy birthday, stay out of the doldrums, and set sail with The Crimson Pirate!