Pirate Movies

The best comment that anyone's ever left on my blog was on my 12/1/08 post. It came from my youngest brother and all he wrote was: "Better luck in 2010!" I still laugh at that. He may be critical but I welcome opposing points of view and I usually learn from them (maybe not this one). What he was referring to was a list of classic movies on my online rental queue. To catch you up on how that's going, I've only watched a quarter of the movies on that list so far, and we're almost halfway through the year, so that means I'm behind. I've added all the seasons of The Cosby Show since then, and my wife's added Project Runway, so that explains that. The last classic movie I got was Crimson Pirate (1952), a supposed pirate spoof with Burt Lancaster. I didn't know it was supposed to be a spoof until I started reading reviews afterwards. I just thought it was another great pirate movie since I watched Captain Blood (1935) a few months ago and it was great as well. Now I'm starting to wonder if all pirate movies are good. This has nothing to do with the recent trend brought on by Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) either. If I've never mentioned on this blog before, Johnny Depp is my favorite actor, but I'm beginning to think all actors are good when playing pirates:

1. The Black Pirate (1926) Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. - the original swashbuckler, starting with The Three Musketeers (1921) and finishing with The Iron Mask (1929)

2. Captain Blood (1935) Errol Flynn - this first starring role for the best known swashbuckler led to The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), also starring Olivia de Havilland

3. The Black Swan (1942) Tyrone Power - swashbuckling star who did The Mark of Zorro remake (1940); stars here along with pirate movie regular, Maureen O'Hara

4. Treasure Island (1950) Robert Newton - probably the best-known face in pirate pop culture, he went on to do the Disney TV series of the same name and voice of Disney's animated Peter Pan plays the cabin boy here, Bobby Driscoll

5. The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964) Christopher Lee - who in recent years has become better known for playing Saruman in The Lord of the Rings; he initially became famous for his string of performances for Hammer Film Productions, which did remakes of the gothic Universal monsters plus this pirate movie

6. Swashbuckler (1976) Robert Shaw - played Quint in Jaws

7. Pirates of Penzance (1983) Kevin Kline - adapted for screen from the 1879 comic opera

8. Rob Roy (1995) Liam Neeson - if you want to catch up on his action movies from long before Taken

9. Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter (2009) Gerard Butler - "a comic-book inside the comics . . . claims that in a world where super-heroes are alive and known, then instead of comics dealing with super-heroes, more comics dealing with pirates would be written." (Wikipedia)

10. Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (?) Johnny Depp - currently stuck in "development hell" but there's still hope

I should have saved this post for International Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sep. 19), but I've been so excited I wanted to at least share a list of ten classic pirate movies to add to my online rental queue. Obviously there are many more besides these, but I limited myself to one per decade. For those who still don't get why I'm making a big fuss, I've realized that pirate movies are like the original action/romance hybrids, the original buddy comedies, and the original counterculture movement movies. How can you resist the beautiful lead actresses, the colorful costumes, the international intrigue, the loyal misfit crews with their Mafia-like code of honor, and the rebellious attitude? Even the Muppets (1996) and VeggieTales (2008) have done pirates. My favorite Saturday morning cartoon was The Pirates of Dark Water (1991) which remains unfinished to this day. One of my favorite movies of all time is The Goonies (1985), and I've mentioned before on this blog that I have a t-shirt of Chunk's character doing the "truffle shuffle," which I happened to be wearing on the day my son was born. He likes my t-shirt and a couple weeks ago, I finally got around to showing him the actual movie scene that's depicted. Little does he know that he's been exposed to his first pirate movie.