The Crimson Pirate

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What’s the Story?

Captain Vallo (Burt Lancaster), a dashing ocean pirate who captures a Spanish ship sent to quell a colonial uprising in the Caribbean, decides to profit off both sides. He not only sells the weapons on board to the rebels, but sells the rebels out to the governor's imperial forces. Vallo changes his mind, though, when he falls in love with the rebel leader's daughter, Consuelo (Eva Bartok). Because he's violated "the pirate code" by putting personal feelings ahead of plunder, Vallo is overthrown by his own crew, and the Spanish authorities plan to marry Consuelo off to the elderly governor to cement their power. But one of Vallo's remaining allies among the islanders, a Ben Franklin-type inventor-revolutionary, helps come up with homebrew high-explosives, a giant balloon, mobile cannons, and other gadgets to fight back against the Spanish and recapture Vallo's pirate ship.

Is It Any Good?

Though he became associated with ultra-serious roles in a long and varied filmography, star Burt Lancaster had an early career as a circus acrobat, one he put to good use in The Crimson Pirate, a flighty, swashbuckling romp in which he swings like Tarzan from mast to mast and rallies a bunch of villagers to invent the tank and the machine gun and the submarine several centuries early. It's pure popcorn escapism that still holds up well.

Playing out like a live-action cartoon, it's charming folderol, with practically no sense of danger, but lots of good humor, bright-colored costumes, impressive vessels, great stunts, and some clever lines -- or lack of them, in the case of Vallo's mute sidekick Ojo (Nick Cravat), who utters not a word, yet makes himself perfectly understood through miming and prop-comedy. The filmmakers even things out by giving the main villain his own nonverbal henchman, played by longtime screen menace Christopher Lee.