Crimson Pirate, The (DVD)

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"Gather round, lads and lasses, gather round. You've been shanghaied aboard for the last cruise of the Crimson Pirate, a long, long time ago in the far, far Caribbean. Remember, in a pirate ship in pirate waters in a pirate world, ask no questions and believe only what you see. No, believe half of what you see."
--Burt Lancaster

With tongue planted firmly in cheek, "The Crimson Pirate" (1952) is one of those rare films that's able to poke fun at the action/adventure genre whilst paying the highest tribute to it. Like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or the early Bonds, it works both as a movie parody and as a rollicking good adventure at the same time.

Much of the film's success must be attributed to its lead, Burt Lancaster. Here was a fellow who had "movie star" written all over him. Why don't they make movie stars like Burt Lancaster anymore? Handsome and athletic, he had a face chiseled from marble and a smile that flashed so brightly the audience required shades. Nor was he merely an action hero in films like this one and "The Flame and the Arrow"; he was an equally accomplished dramatic actor, nominated for four Academy Awards in "From Here to Eternity, "Elmer Gantry," "Birdman of Alcatraz," and "Atlantic City," winning for "Gantry." Lancaster lights up the screen as the flamboyant Captain Vallo, a.k.a. the Crimson Pirate.

The movie, of course, pokes good-natured fun at its famous predecessors, things like Doug Fairbanks's "The Black Pirate" (1926) and Errol Flynn's "Captain Blood" (1935) and "The Sea Hawk" (1940). But as I say, it's not just a Mel Brooks-variety, all-out spoof, filled with nothing but comedy. "The Crimson Pirate" works much more like the serious thrillers it emulates, exaggerating characters and events just enough along the way to heighten our sense of unreality; or as Lancaster says in the opening, "Believe half of what you see." The result is a high good time.

Supporting Lancaster in these hijinks is his old pal, Nick Cravat, from their days as a real-life acrobatic team. Cravat plays Ojo, a mute who acts as a comic sidekick. Cravat wasn't really mute; however, he often played one to hide his rather strong New York accent. The two actors coincidentally died the same year, 1994. Odd. Anyhow, together Lancaster and Cravat perform most of their own stunts, and it's a pleasure to watch them do backwards somersaults off walls, swing across buildings, and stage their fight scenes in the best swashbuckling style.

Also in the cast for this late eighteenth-century Caribbean enterprise are Eva Bartok as the love interest, the beautiful Consuela, feisty daughter of "El Libre" (Frederick Leister). Her father is the rebel leader of a band of peasants on the isle of Cobra revolting against the tyranny of the King. Just exactly which king is never mentioned; one assumes it's the King of Spain (it is the Caribbean, after all), but the colors and uniforms of the king are made purposely ambiguous on the point. Then, there's Leslie Bradley as the villain of the piece, Baron Gruda, a proper scoundrel in black mustache, whose idea of a good time is having a prisoner flogged in a cell revealed behind a movable portrait in his living room. Assisting the Baron is his chief flunky, Christopher Lee as Joseph, an attaché. Amazingly, Lee is still doing this sort of thing better than anyone else fifty years later as an evildoer in the most recent "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings" episodes. Finally, there's James Hayter as Professor Elihu Prudence, an inventor of amazing machines that fly in the air and sail underwater.