THE SEA HAWK (1940)

Classic Golden Age Hollywood swashbuckler has aged with uncommon grace. A huge production, bigger than you may recall, director Michael Curtiz maintains continuous excitement while folding in deft comic interplay on lush sets repurposed from last year’s ELIZABETH AND ESSEX and delivering sea-faring effects that have hardly dated. While the Seton Miller/Howard Koch script doubles the emotional tug with a period storyline that echoes contemporary war events in Europe. (Philip II’s 16th Century Spain standing in for Nazi Germany and Elizabeth I’s England for Churchill’s United Kingdom.) Little more than the title remains from Rafael Sabatini’s SEA HAWK novel, faithfully filmed in 1924,* instead, Errol Flynn as Britain’s top pirateer, raids Spanish galleons while trying to warn a skeptical Queen of Philip’s war plans. Flora Robson is a standout Elizabeth; Henry Daniell a stealthy court villain (his total lack of fencing skills brilliantly finessed with doubles, edits & shadows on the wall); the usual stellar Warners supporting players; and, as love interest, Brenda Marshall, fine, if no Olivia de Havilland. Compared to CAPTAIN BLOOD/’35, the first of the series with Flynn, Curtiz and composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold*, there’s more expertise & filmmaking confidence, the Hollywood Studio Factory at its zenith. Perhaps, almost too perfected, missing the sense of boundless discovery in the looser, less ‘well-made’ earlier film. And showing just a hint of the airless quality that would steadily increase over the decade.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *A galley slave rebellion, played like a silent film, is unthinkable without Korngold’s score, ending with a near operatic chorale as the men exalt upon heading home. No wonder Korngold gets a remarkable solo card in the opening credits, second only to director Curtiz.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Frank Lloyd’s silent SEA HAWK, with striking perfs from manly Milton Sills and the alternately dastardly & likeable Wallace Beery, is also quite a show. And in great shape on the Warners DVD.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/06/sea-hawk-1924.html