weezeralfalfa
My title quote is from one of the crew of Captain Porter's US Naval vessel, disguised as the pirate ship/privateer Balboa. He has just put a blindfold on Count Del Prado, the Spanish Governor of the West Indies(a dubious title), before he is made to walk the plank, unless he tells Porter where a large pirate fleet is located! At the last second, Del Prado indirectly complies by providing a map of where this fleet plus a Portuguese man o'war plan to attack a Brazilian treasure fleet sailing from Rio to London! Del Prado then requests that he be taken ashore and released. Porter says, OK, but not until they reach Chalreston, S.C.! This is a sampling of the outrageous historical and political license assumed in screen writing this hurriedly concocted yarn, while waiting for Flynn's broken ankle to heal, so that another pirate yarn could be finished. As others have pointed out, David Porter and David Farragut, two very famous 19th century US naval officers, were very connected personally, but not in the manner dramatized in this film.A Portuguese man o' war in the Caribbean, which lacked any Portuguese colonies, allied with the Spanish governor and Spanish pirates?? I don't think so! True, Portugal had been in a state of political turmoil since the French invasion, and had moved it's empire capital from Lisbon to Rio during and after the Napoleonic Wars. Brazil had recently declared its independence, just after the royal family moved back to Lisbon, but they were not at war with each other. A beautiful young Brazilian countess(Suzan Ball) marooned by the Spanish governor on a small island, well occupied by Native Americans, off the Mosquitoe coast of Central America?? I don't think so! She should have been dead of malaria or yellow fever, etc,, by then!This is one of those films where the dramatic leading man and the romantic leading man are not the same. In this case, the exceptionally tall Jeff Chandler, as the older Captain Porter, is the dramatic lead, while the younger Scott Brady, as the recent midshipman graduate, Lt. David Farragut, is the romantic lead. The prematurely graying Chandler gave it a shot, but evidently was considered too old, by Margarita. Ball and Brady had a previous romantic relationship, resulting from being cast in another film. Neither Chandler nor Brady come across to me as being especially charismatic action actors. Of the 4 Universal pirate films included in their current DVD offering, this is certainly my least favorite(and the only loser), for several reasons, this being one. Suzan Ball, cousin of Lucille Ball, whose new TV sitcom was a big hit when this film was being made, certainly came across as a believable beautiful Portuguese princess. As in "War Arrow", her character was quite adamant in demanding respect from the men. However, she wasn't as much fun as Yvonne de Carlo in "Buccaneer's Girl", nor Maureen O'Hara , in "Against all Flags". Unfortunately, she would succumb to cancer at age 21, but not before playing Chief Crazy Horse's wife(She mostly played ethnics) Although she was married at the time, her real love seems to have been the married Anthony Quinn, with whom she had a previous affair.This is a pirate yarn in which we never encounter a real classic pirate or pirate ship! Such are only talked about. The only near naval battle is between Captain Porter's ship and the Portugues Man o' War. All the other several skirmishes take place on land. This includes the capture of Farragut by the Native American friends of Countess Margarita, the capture of Farragut's landing party by Del Prado's soldiers, near the governor's palace/fort in Havanna, and the subsequent sword fight between the Porter-led rescue party and Del Prado's soldiers. In this last action, we have US navy personnel, impersonating pirates, capture a bunch of Del Predo's sentries, then don their uniforms and impersonate them at the changing of the guard, in order to gain easy entry through the gates into the governor's palace.Like Suzan Ball, Joseph Calleia, who plays Del Prado, started his entertainment career as a singer, but was transformed by Hollywood into a typecast heavy, often a mobster. He was a native of Malta, a small island near Sicily.George Mathews plays chief Petty Officer Link, whose role is rather similar to that of the first mate in many pirate films. Link usually accompanied Farragut in his several landing parties. A running gag is his, often frustrated, fondness for alcoholic drinks. At one point,it's reported that scurvy is breaking out among the crew. Lacking any vegetable sources of vitamin C, Porter orders the crew to imbibe some rum as a 'tonic'. This was a popular, but quite ineffective, remedy for centuries. The Chinese typically took green tea on their long voyages, which was effective and also had a good shelf life. The limes that the British eventually adopted were effective, but the acidity was hard on the sailor's teeth, which they needed to chew the hardtack given them.
MARIO GAUCI
The best, if not exactly satisfying, of the three seemingly randomly-chosen swashbucklers by Universal to accompany the above-average Errol Flynn vehicle AGAINST ALL FLAGS (1952) is this unusual entry in the genre.As the title has it, lead Jeff Chandler is a U.S. naval officer who's ordered to carry out acts of piracy in order to ferret out the real culprits behind the sinking of American ships. These prove to be an amalgamation of Brazilian, Portuguese and Spanish villains (led by our own Joseph Calleia hiding under the respectable guise of the Spanish governor – whose appearance is delayed until the last half-hour, but he's as reliable as ever…and like the Robert Douglas of BUCCANEER'S GIRL [1950], from the same director, is allowed to go free after being made to walk the plank).Chandler himself – who would later star in the similarly-titled genre outing YANKEE PASHA (1954) – is a bit of a martinet, with rebellious first-mate and ex-student Scott Brady usually at the receiving end of his ire; when he tries to make up for his errors behind the captain's back, by fixing the ship's rudder at night, Brady's attacked by and kills a shark! This animosity eventually intensifies when the latter comes back from a scouting expedition to the Indies with a Portuguese countess (luscious Suzan Ball, whose debut this was: she had a brief and tragic career, dying in 1955 at the tender age of 21!).Though the film is far from a classic, slightly marred by the resistible comic antics of George Mathews and featuring little traditional action before the last reel, it's a reasonably enjoyable romp nonetheless – with a rousing score by an uncredited(!) Milton Rosen and shot in glorious Technicolor by the distinguished Russell Metty.
