Despite the likes of Maureen O'Hara and Rhonda Fleming playing pirate captains in movies, there never, ever was a pirate captain that was a female except in Hollywood! There are only two European women who are readily accepted as being pirates (Mary Read and Anne Bonny), they were NOT in charge and both were crew members and lovers of Calico Jack Rackham-a very, very minor pirate indeed aside from the novelty of these two female pirates among his small crew. And, I doubt if either Bonny or Read were smokin'-hot redheads like the female pirates brought to us in films! Now there was the wife of a famous Chinese pirate who gained a lot of fame and power (Cheng I Sao) but she bore no similarity to this Hollywood cliché In addition, many pirates in films are so perfect and kind and sweet you wonder if any pirate was like this. Well, a few were (such as Bartholmew Roberts--who insisted on conducting prayer meetings for his men), but most were NOTHING like the film versions. They were neither the autocratic toughies nor the noble gentlemen--and most often just some thug who was more likely to be an alcoholic and rapist than the gentile guy you see in films!
So, as a world history teacher, I must say up front that this film and many like it DO irritate me. It featured a female pirate (Fleming) and a swell pirate captain (Sterling Hayden) who was the epitome of everything a pirate could not have been! So please enjoy this film...but also understand this is nothing like real pirates...at least not on this planet!! Hayden plays the Hawk, a French pirate (with a strong American accent) who has been trying to even the score between him and an evil Spanish pirate (why do the baddies always have to be Spanish in these films?!). However, when he has the chance to do so, he doesn't--making him a bit of a loser among any self-respecting pirate! In addition, when he captures a comely woman, he always is sure to let them know that he will NEVER force himself on them--even giving them a loaded gun to use if they feel he is not accepting 'NO' as answer!! Eventually, though, this pro-social attitude towards date rape comes to haunt him, as one of the women (Fleming) turns out to be a pirate herself in disguise as a lady--and she shoots him and escapes!! So much for the gun routine! Well, frankly, there is more to the film (such as an attack on a Spanish stronghold) but I found my attention waning badly...because the film was so ordinary and uninteresting. Even for a totally clichéd Hollywood film, this one was poor! Uninteresting and, at best, routine.
So, as a world history teacher, I must say up front that this film and many like it DO irritate me. It featured a female pirate (Fleming) and a swell pirate captain (Sterling Hayden) who was the epitome of everything a pirate could not have been! So please enjoy this film...but also understand this is nothing like real pirates...at least not on this planet!! Hayden plays the Hawk, a French pirate (with a strong American accent) who has been trying to even the score between him and an evil Spanish pirate (why do the baddies always have to be Spanish in these films?!). However, when he has the chance to do so, he doesn't--making him a bit of a loser among any self-respecting pirate! In addition, when he captures a comely woman, he always is sure to let them know that he will NEVER force himself on them--even giving them a loaded gun to use if they feel he is not accepting 'NO' as answer!! Eventually, though, this pro-social attitude towards date rape comes to haunt him, as one of the women (Fleming) turns out to be a pirate herself in disguise as a lady--and she shoots him and escapes!! So much for the gun routine! Well, frankly, there is more to the film (such as an attack on a Spanish stronghold) but I found my attention waning badly...because the film was so ordinary and uninteresting. Even for a totally clichéd Hollywood film, this one was poor! Uninteresting and, at best, routine.