My Ten Favorite Swashbucklers

Swashbucklers are their own brand of swaggering cool, aren't they?  Devil-may-care heroes, feisty heroines, and plenty of sword fights and chases and fisticuffs to keep things galloping along.  A good swashbuckler is pretty well guaranteed to raise my spirits even on the gloomiest day.  Here are my favorites!

1. The Princess Bride (1987)  After Buttercup's (Robin Wright) true love Westley (Cary Elwes) is murdered by pirates, she agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon), but gets kidnapped before the wedding. I'll never forget the first time I saw this movie -- it changed my ideas about humor and fantasy forever.

2. The Mask of Zorro (1998)  An aging Zorro (Anthony Hopkins) is unmasked and imprisoned by the greedy and cruel Don Montero (Stuart Wilson), who also steals his baby daughter Elena.  When Montero and a grown Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) return to California, Zorro trains a bumbling thief (Antonio Banderas) to be his successor and fight oppression in his place.  I saw this in the theater the summer before I went to college, and it kind of dominated my life for a while.  I had the poster on my dorm room wall, I listened to the soundtrack until my roommates were sick of it, and I watched the movie so often I basically memorized it.  Twenty-five years later, I'm still not tired of it!

3. The Black Swan (1942)  Former pirate captain Jamie Waring (Tyrone Power) kidnaps, then woos, then rescues a governor's feisty daughter (Maureen O'Hara) while also helping Governor Henry Morgan (Laird Cregar) clear the pirates out of the Caribbean.  This is one of the most fun movies I have ever seen, and I judge all other pirate movies by it.

4. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)  Robin Hood (Errol Flynn) has a jolly time robbing the rich Normans to feed the poor Saxons, wooing Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland), and foiling Prince John (Claude Rains) and Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone) when they plot to steal the throne from King Richard (Ian Hunter).  It has everything I could possibly want in a Robin Hood movie :-D

5. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)  Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) resorts to commandeering, raiding, pillaging, plundering, and otherwise pilfering his weasely black guts out, all to regain his beloved ship. More fun than a barrel of undead monkeys!

6. The Three Musketeers (1993)  Young d'Artagnan (Chris O'Donnell) just wants to be a Musketeer, but he ends up embroiled in unmasking a plot against the king. His three Musketeer friends (Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, and Oliver Platt) are hilarious and awesome too.

7. The Count of Monte Cristo (1975)  Simple, honest sailor Edmund Dantes (Richard Chamberlain) is betrayed by his supposed friends and sent to prison on false charges. He escapes, gains staggering wealth, and seeks vengeance against his enemies. Based on the book by Alexandre Dumas, king of the swashbucklers.

8. The Mark of Zorro (1940)  Diego de la Vega (Tyrone Power) returns home to California from studying in Spain and discovers oppression and injustice everywhere.  He disguises himself as a cunning rogue called Zorro and sets about righting wrongs and championing the poor and dueling with Basil Rathbone and generally having a grand time.

9. Against All Flags (1952)  A roguish naval officer (Errol Flynn) pretends to be a pirate in order to infiltrate a pirate stronghold, only to find himself falling for a strong-willed, lemon-tongued Pirate Captain (Maureen O'Hara). Jolly good fun.

10. The Prisoner of Zenda (1952)  A British hunter (Stewart Granger) masquerades as the king (Stewart Granger) of a small European nation so that the king's enemies (including James Mason) can't usurp the throne while the king lies ill. Things get complicated when the fake king falls in love with the woman (Deborah Kerr) who is intended to marry the real king. 

Well, those are my ten favorite swashbuckler movies!  If you'd like to see my list of favorite swashbuckler books, I recently posted that on my book blog :-)

Answers to Which Pirate is Which?

Here be the answers to the game I posted earlier this week, and everyone's scores at the bottom.  

In the comments on the game, I agreed to award an extra half point for every actor's name you got correct, even if you didn't know the character's name or the movie, so now you understand the half points some people are getting here.  So the scoring was 1 point for every correct character name, 1 point for every correct movie title, and 1/2 point for every correct actor name.

1. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp)
from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

2. Jamie Waring (Tyrone Power)
from The Black Swan (1942)

3. Peter Blood (Errol Flynn)
from Captain Blood (1935)

4. Roberts (Cary Elwes)
from The Princess Bride (1987)

5. Blackbeard (Peter Ustinov)
from Blackbeard's Ghost (1968)

6. Henry Morgan (Laird Cregar)
from The Black Swan (1942)

7. Macoco (Gene Kelly)
from The Pirate (1948)

8. Long John Silver (Robert Newton)
from Treasure Island (1950

9. Vallo (Burt Lancaster)
from The Crimson Pirate (1952)

10. Davey Crandall (Donald O'Connor)
from Double Crossbones (1951)

11. Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush)
from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

12. Hook (Dustin Hoffman)
from Hook (1991)

SCORES:

Andrea -- 29

Caftan Woman -- 23

MovieCritic -- 18

Cordy -- 10

Heidi -- 7.5

Skye -- 5

My Ten Favorite Maureen O'Hara Movies

To honor Maureen O'Hara after her recent passing, I'm sharing a list of my ten favorite films that she starred in.  Comedies, westerns, swashbucklers, dramas -- she could handle them all.

1.  The Parent Trap (1961)

Twin sisters (Hayley Mills as both) with divorced parents (Maureen O'Hara and Brian Kieth) scheme to bring their parents back together.  It's been one of my favorite movies since I was a teen.

2.  The Rare Breed (1966)

A British widow (Maureen O'Hara) and her daughter (Juliet Mills) accompany the prize bull they've sold on its way to its new owner (Brian Keith) with the help of a determined cowhand (James Stewart).  I've seen this so often, the characters all feel like dear old friends.

3.  The Black Swan (1942)

Captain Jamie Waring (Tyrone Power) renounces piracy, falls in love with a fiery noblewoman (Maureen O'Hara), and dashes about having swashbuckling adventures.  A perfectly delightful movie.

4.  Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962)

Roger Hobbs (James Stewart) and his wife Peggy (Maureen O'Hara) vacation with their family in a decidedly eccentric house, encountering many gently comic adventures. This is one of those movies I quote all the time in my head.

5.  The Quiet Man (1952)

An American ex-prizefighter (John Wayne) moves to Ireland and marries a feisty native (Maureen O'Hara) who believes he is a coward and refuses to live with him as man and wife until he proves her wrong.  A dramatic and beautiful movie.

6.  Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

A skeptical little girl (Natalie Wood) and her busy single mother (Maureen O'Hara) meet a man named Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) who tries to convince them he's the real Santa Claus.  Heartwarming.

7.  McLintock! (1963)

A rich rancher (John Wayne) battles his estranged wife (Maureen O'Hara), daughter, land-grabbing bad guys, and various other adversaries.  Almost a western version of The Taming of the Shrew.

8.  The Wings of Eagles (1957)

The true story of a Navy pilot (John Wayne) who is paralyzed after an accident, and regains the ability to move with the help of his best friend (Dan Dailey) and wife (Maureen O'Hara).  Such an inspiring movie!

9.  Spencer's Mountain (1963)

A hardworking man (Henry Fonda) has to decide if he should build his wife (Maureen O'Hara) the home he's promised her for years or send his son (James MacArthur) to college.  Based on the novel by Earl Hamner, Jr. that also inspired the TV show The Waltons a few years later.

10.  Big Jake (1971)

A rich rancher (John Wayne) returns to his home after years of roaming when his estranged wife (Maureen O'Hara) telegraphs him that their grandson (Ethan Wayne) has been kidnapped.  The more modern setting (1909, with cars and motorcycles) saddens me in many ways, but it's a solid story and has lots of familiar faces.

"The Black Swan" (1942)

This is my contribution to the very first blogathon I have ever hosted :-)  Click here or on that button to find the list of all the other entries and read those too!

I first saw this a few years ago, before I really had seen Tyrone Power in much of anything.  Oh, I'd seen him in two or three movies, but none of them recently.  This is the movie that made me sit up and go, "Zowie!  I need to see more Tyrone Power movies!"  In fact, most of the time I can't actually remember Tyrone Power's name -- I think of him as "Jamie Boy," his character in this movie.  (Also, I just learned I've been pronouncing "Tyrone" wrong all these years.  At least, according to the trailer for this movie.)

Anyway, on to the pirates!

The Black Swan opens with Captain Jamie Waring (Tyrone Power) and his band of pirates descending on a sleeping Caribbean city and carrying off all the treasure, wine, and women they can hold.  But Captain Waring (called "Jamie Boy" by those who love him) gets captured by the Spanish soldiers, and the governor of Jamaica puts him on the rack and tries to torture him into revealing where notorious pirate Henry Morgan is.  Of course, Jamie Boy just spits insults at him until his pirate crew comes to free him, and they stick the governor on the rack instead.

And that's when Lady Margaret (Maureen O'Hara) sweeps imperiously down the stairs, points a pistol at Jamie Boy, and demands to know where her father is.  Turns out she's the daughter of some British lord they'd just tossed in a dungeon.

Jamie Boy tells his crew he's claiming her as "captain's share" of the loot, then salutes her with his sword and trades insults with her for a bit.

Frankly, if I'd been confronted by a shirtless, scruffy Tyrone Power brandishing a beautiful sword, I probably would have swooned on the spot to make myself easier to tote.  However, Lady Margaret is made of sterner stuff than I (being played by Maureen O'Hara, after all), and instead she tries to threaten her way free.  He disarms her handily, then tries to kiss her, saying he always samples a bottle of wine before he buys it.  When he does manage to kiss her, she bites him, so he does what any self-respecting pirate would:  slugs her and prepares to carry her off to his ship.

But when he opens the door, what to his wondering eyes should appear but Captain Henry Morgan (Laird Cregar)!  Freshly pardoned by the English government and set up as the new governor of Jamaica!

Captain Morgan announces that peace has been declared between England and Spain, and that as governor, he's giving all pirates the choice of either stopping their piratical ways and settling down on land he'll give them, or else leaving the Caribbean for good.

Of course, that doesn't sit well with every single pirate, particularly Captain Leech (George Sanders) and his menacing pal Wogan (Anthony Quinn).  They declare they think that Morgan is an English spy and that they're going to continue pirating if they darn well please, and don't start ordering them around!

But Jamie Boy agrees to stop being a pirate and instead become Governor Morgan's right-hand man.  And then we have the ceremony where Morgan gets installed as governor publicly, and Lady Margaret is very upset by having a pirate as a governor, especially since it means Jamie Boy is around to bother her now.  AND he's sleeping in her old room at the governor's palace.  She flounces out into the garden, Jamie Boy follows her, and we have my favorite scene in the whole movie.

Jamie Boy tells her that he's learned a whole new set of manners, and that now, instead of hugging and squeezing a woman into loving him, he's going to try his hand at being a gentleman.

 And even with him looking this splendid, she still keeps glaring and yowling at him!

How on earth she can resist him in this outfit, I don't know.  But she does.  Like I said, sterner stuff than I'm made of.

Actually, that's what I like best about this movie -- the way these two characters grow.  They're both very selfish and proud, and they both have to learn to think about someone other than themselves before they can find love and happiness.  It's a very sweet moral, for a pirate movie, but don't worry -- it's not all about the romance.  It's mostly about the swashbuckling, and they have a sword fight every ten minutes or so just to keep things peppy.

Lady Margaret has a fancy-pants fiance named Roger Ingram (Edward Ashley), who Jamie Boy refuses to duel with because he's promised not to kill any tame rabbits today.  Which is important to the plot, but also, I wanted to mention him so I could show you this shot of how awesome Jamie Boy's cape is:

That rascally Captain Leech continues pirating all around the Caribbean, and the people of Jamaica think Governor Morgan is feeding Leech information, so Morgan sends Jamie Boy and a couple other trustworthy captains out to find Leech in Tortuga and bring him to justice.

Leech does have a spy on Jamaica, so he knows to run away from Tortuga before Jamie Boy ever got there.  Jamie Boy heads back to Jamaica to figure out who the spy is, and stomps into the assembly room or whatever it is, looking fearsome and delicious again.  The Jamaican gentry think it's either Morgan or Jamie Boy who's the traitor, and Jamie Boy gets really angry and declares he'll find Leech and stop him or die trying.  Or something like that -- I get distracted by the jaunty angle of Jamie Boy's hat and don't pay close attention to dialog in this scene.

Before he sets sail, Jamie Boy kidnaps Lady Margaret on the eve of her wedding to the tame rabbit, with the help of his trusty sidekick Tommy Blue (Thomas Mitchell).  Tommy Blue calls her a "flouncy wench" and declares she's more trouble than she's worth, but he helps anyway.

They set off to find Leech, but he finds them first and prepares to attack.  Jamie Boy decides the only way to save himself, his ship, and Lady Margaret is to pretend he's gone back to piracy and join up with Leech.  When Lady Margaret comes out on deck, there's a delightful shot of her confronting the Jolly Roger as they're preparing to run it up.

Leech sees their flag and comes over to parley, but he's not convinced.  Jamie Boy claims he and Lady Margaret are married, and she has the good sense to not disagree.  Leech signs articles with Jamie Boy, but insists Jamie Boy and Lady Margaret come sail on Leech's ship, the Black Swan, as an assurance of their loyalty.

They have to share a cabin on the Black Swan, but Jamie Boy courteously cedes the bed to her and sleeps in a hammock.  And looks all wistful and dreamy.  Honestly, has there ever been a more handsome pirate?  I think not.

And then there's a sea battle, and lots and lots and lots of sword fighting, with various and assorted feats of derring-do, as befits a pirate battle.

I'm not going to tell you exactly how it ends.  Watch it for yourself to see if Jamie Boy finally wins the affections of Lady Margaret, or if he dies in glorious battle with Captain Leech, or what.  Seriously -- this is a must-see pirate movie, and it's not hard to find on DVD.  You can pick up a used copy on the Barnes & Noble website for $7, or a brand-new one on Amazon for under $20.  Also, any self-respecting library should have this.

Is this movie family friendly?  Well, I'm not going to show it to my six-year-old just yet, but that's because I think the scene with Jamie Boy on the rack might worry him.  The action is all non-bloody, even when someone gets run through with a sword.  Lady Margaret does have her (non-bare) ankles and calves felt up on a couple of occasions, not to mention Jamie Boy forcing a kiss on her, but that's as racy as it gets.  And there are zero bad words.

Now, let's discuss those costumes a minute.  Specifically the glory and splendor that is Jamie Boy's black outfit with the swooshy red cloak/cape.  This is, hands down, the best pirate costume I have ever seen.  A screenshot can't show you how awesome the cloak in particular is.  I wish I knew how to create a GIF so I could show you how he can swoop the long right end of it up and over his left shoulder -- it's so supremely cool that if I had a cloak like that, I would wear it All The Time.

I probably should have screencapped a few more of Lady Margaret's costumes, but I did get long shots of a couple.  This one makes her look a little bit like Glinda the Good Witch, but it's sparkly and looks soft, and I would wear it if I had the figure for it.  Or a really good corset.  I don't much care for the little poofy bow on top of her head, but she pulls it off.  Because she's Maureen O'Hara.

I like this dress of hers best, with its layers of sheer and flimsy stuff, and that trailing scarf/wrap thingie.  It's the one she gets kidnapped in.  She has a couple others that are not a pale peachy color too, but I couldn't get good long shots of them.

Here's the trailer, if you want a sample this bottle of wine before you buy it:

"The Sun Also Rises" (1957) -- Initial Thoughts and Giveaway!

(This is my contribution to the Power-Mad Blogathon -- go here for the official page listing all the posts!  From here on out, spoilage abounds.)

This may be a strange way to begin a blog post that's part of a blogothon celebrating Tyrone Power's 100th birthday.  But for the first fifteen minutes or so of this movie, I thought Power was horribly miscast.  He was in his forties, with a touch of grey in his hair and a lack of bounce to his step.  Jake Barnes should be in his late twenties, a survivor of the recent Great War, a still-robust young man who thinks nothing of hiking for miles and miles through the mountains to find the ultimate fishing spot.  You see, I'd reread the book prior to watching this movie version so I could compare the two (my review of the book is here), and try as I might, I could not envision Power in the role as I read.

But then we got to the scene where he sees Lady Brett Ashley (Ava Gardner) for the first time in quite a while, and all of a sudden, Power was exactly Jake Barnes and I loved him in the role for the rest of the movie.  The fact that he was older than the character in the book simply added to his world-weariness and the sense that here is a man who has seen and done too much and is annoyed with it all.

Their differing expressions when they see Brett say so much, don't they?

In fact, the cast as a whole is remarkably well suited to their roles.  Ava Gardner is very believable as Brett, a woman with a mannish attitude toward relationships who is unceasingly alluring to men.  Gardner imbues Brett with a glimmer of tears behind her bravado and a ferocious beauty that leaves no questions about why so many men are chasing her.

Mel Ferrar is quite good as Robert Cohn.  He's a love-lorn fool with his heart permanently sewn to his sleeve.  Ferrar uses his sad-puppy eyes and droopy mouth to great effect throughout.

Eddie Albert is, well, Eddie Albert.  You want a smiling guy to cheer everyone up over and over, you get Eddie Albert.  He's fine as Jake's American pal Bill, but not the only person who could have played the role.

Bill saying my favorite line:  "Caffeine, we are here!"

In fact, I think think the best casting choice was Errol Flynn as Brett's long-suffering fiance, Mike Campbell.  Still very dashing twenty years after he ran around rescuing damsels in distress, Flynn really looks like a man who could interest Brett even though he's bankrupt.  Mike is another character it would be easy to either underplay or overplay, but Flynn gives him great balance, not too accepting of Brett's wanderings, but not too worried about them either.  And underlying his determined drinking is an aching sense of loss, that he used to be much more than a drunken, penniless Scotsman bumping around Europe.

And rounding out the cast is the one actor who completely failed my every expectation for the character:  Robert Evans as the bullfighter Pedro Romero.  Sadly, I had envisioned Rudolph Valentino from Blood and Sand (1922), and the truth is, no one was going to live up to Rudy in the role.  But did they have to cast a guy who looked like this when he smiled?

I really didn't buy Brett falling for him.  Seemed more like charity than anything.

Okay, so much for the cast.  Just in case you want to know what the movie is actually about, it's pretty simple:  Jake, Mike, Robert, and Pedro are all in love with Brett Ashley.  Bill isn't.

If you want the longer version, it's this:  Jake and Brett have been in love for years, but a war injury left Jake impotent, and Brett has a voracious sexual appetite, so they've decided it's no use.  Brett is engaged to Mike, has a fling with Robert, then another fling with Pedro.  There's a bunch of bullfighting too.

If you want a much longer, more detailed synopsis, read my book review cuz this is getting plenty long already.

So.  How did I like the movie as compared to the book?  Overall, I like the book better.  But I think that as Hemingway adaptations go, this is pretty good.  Most of the characters look and sound very much like they do in the book.  Chunks of dialog even got used, which pleased me no end -- even my favorite quote about coffee made it in, which I wasn't expecting since it's not integral to the story at all.

Both book and movie are slowly, almost languidly paced, developing emotions and situations over time instead of rushing through everything.  I think the bull fights were actually more exciting in the book, but overall they did a swell job turning a 250-page book into a 130-minute movie.  They did change some things, like adding in a sequence where Bill and Mike drunkenly get caught up in the running of the bulls by mistake.  I think that was supposed to add some comic relief, but I thought it was jarringly out of emotional synch with the rest of the movie.

There are some bigger changes too, like leaving out the fact that Robert Cohn is Jewish.  I found that omission very sensible, as the book gets labeled anti-Semitic a lot, and I feel like his Jewishness really has nothing to do with the story.  They also explicitly stated that Jake Barnes is impotent, which is only implied in the book.  Harder to get across with a movie, maybe.  Or the word wasn't as taboo by 1957 as it was thirty years earlier when the book was published?

Anyway, the acting from Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, and Erroll Flynn was just superb.  What those three could do with a slight lowering of eyelids or a glance to the side, a smile at the wrong moment, a hesitation during a sentence -- heady stuff, I tell you.  This is well worth seeing just to watch three pros at work.

Tyrone hard at work playing Jake being hard at work.

Is this movie family friendly?  Well, no bad language, as I recall.  No actual bedroom scenes or adult dialog, everything there is implied.  Some violence, with one fist fight and lots of bull fights.  No blood or dead animals shown in the bullfights, though.  As clean as it can be, with the subject matter, I'd say!

But overall, this isn't a movie I want to watch over and over.  Which means... I'm going to give away my copy!  I bought it brand-new, only watched it once, and it could be yours!  Just enter the giveaway below for your chance to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This giveaway runs from today through the end of Sunday, May 11, 2014. I'll draw a winner on May 12. PLEASE be sure you've provided a CURRENT email address to this Rafflecopter widget so that when I email the winner, they actually get the notification that they've won! This is open world-wide. If the winner doesn't respond to my notification within one week (by May 19, 2014, in other words), I will draw a different winner and the first one will be out of luck.

And don't forget to read all the other entries into this blogathon!  Click on this button to find the list if you didn't follow my earlier link :-)