Sea Hawk, The (1940)
.jpg)
Director: Michael Curtiz
Director Michael Curtiz and star actor Errol Flynn team up for the
unprecedented tenth time in yet another swashbuckling adventure film with the
Warner Bros. picture The Sea Hawk.
Somewhat of a pirate action/adventure flick meets a loosely based historical
drama The Sea Hawk takes the same
feel of Captain Blood and the Adventures of Robin Hood, both
previous collaborations of Flynn and Curtiz, and puts it in the another high
seas escapade that focuses on action and visuals over the building of
characters and hardiness of a story. Meant to provide the high adrenaline feel
of adventure at sea, the picture provides many audiences with the visuals that
excited vast audiences of the time.
The Sea Hawk is a high seas
adventure of an English privateer that defends England and queen’s honor
against the forces of the rising Spanish Armada that controls the high seas of
the world. Spain’s King Philip II (Montagu Love) secretly plans to take control
of all the world’s ocean ways and island nation of England is the next target
on his plot. Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn) is a cunning, youthful, and very
patriotic captain hired as a privateer for Queen Elizabeth (Flora Robson) who
refuses to form an official navy of England. Ambassador of Spain, Don Alvarez
(Claude Rains) attempts to keep the queen at bay by making her believe the two
nations are alleys while Spain builds up their navy. However, Thorpe strains to
persuade the queen to think otherwise. Thorpe is captured on a secret mission of
his own accord to stop the Spanish, but escapes with the Spanish plans that he
takes back to Queen Elizabeth. With the proof of the intentions of the Spanish
Armada Queen Elizabeth knights Thorpe and declares the building of the British
navy to oppose the threat of Spain and its dictatorial king.
The film makes for a lavish visual spectacle that brushes lightly with
historical events in the face of sword fights and naval battles. Visually intriguing,
the movie was made as a feast for the eyes, but lacked gripping story. What the
visuals lack is the marvelous color used in The
Adventure of Robin Hood to accentuate the adventure and drama of this high
seas spectacle. Originally intended as
an adaptation of the 1915 novel of the same name by Rafael Sabatini, this film
takes only the title from the book and idea of a sea based adventure to make
this feature. In actuality the story seen here in this piece more resembles a
fanciful tale that likens to events that surrounded Sir Francis Drake and his
history, an idea put in place by the writers to make for a more exciting and
relevant with audiences.
Director Michael Curtiz follows his usual model of building a picture
in presenting a feature that makes most of its splashes with extravagant
imagery and action. Here are used many excellent model recreations of three masted
ships in high seas battles and classic fencing sword fights of which Curtiz
seemed to have enjoyed in many of his pictures. Even with the light, forced
romantic story thrown into the mix, the picture lacks is serious substance in
story and characters, which the filmmaker was known to do in his adventure
pictures.
 |
| Fencing! |
Errol Flynn plays the usual Errol Flynn-type of character, a man with
classic gentlemanly charm and dignity, but who seems to almost effortlessly win
out with minimal trial. He plays a privateer in Captain Thorpe, which is
somewhat like a pirate, but who works for the Queen of England, therefore he is
patriot instead of just being a scoundrel. It makes for a character that is a
bit of Captain Black and Robin Hood, as noted before. He stands with his chest
out, wins swordfights that appear to be almost nothing more than swinging his
blade frantically in front of him, and yet never seems to take a mark. Flynn’s
Thorpe is a classic do-good swashbuckler that is too good to be true and can be
rather boring and two dimensional. At his side in many cases is Alan Hale, the
same large fellow that accompanied Flynn as Little John in Robin Hood. Even in
all these cases Errol Flynn was still a very popular movie icon and had he
Australian born actor one of the top draws in the movies, both in America and
in England.
Although the love interest tale seems to be rather weak and forced upon
the plot dominated by adventure, actress Brenda Marshall was given the task as
the damsel that falls for Flynn in this picture. With the twist of her
character, Doña Maria, being the niece of the film primary antagonist in Claude
Rains, her appearance seems to nothing more than play eye candy and a bit of
romance for the women in the audience. The 25 year old actress was still new to
the big screen in a career that would not last very long as she started a
family with fellow actor William Holden after their marriage in 1941.
Of the cast the two performers that perhaps leave the largest mark are the
supporting actors Claude Rains and Flora Robson. Rains plays the villain of the
picture as an ambassador that attempts to keep the Queen of England, played by
Robson from discovering and stopping the growing Spanish fleet. Rains was
already a very well respected actor of stage and screen with his gentlemanly
yet evil appearing ways. He was perfect in the role here with the exception
that he was not very Spanish at all. But, we can let this oversight go. Robson
made for an interesting Queen Elizabeth as she presented a more down to earth
monarch, far more approachable than what audiences most kings or queens used to
in other films.
 |
| Queen Elizabeth knight Cpt. Thorpe |
It is Flora Robson that gives the most memorable moment to the film and
to history in this picture when she, as the Queen, makes a stirring speech to
the magnificent orchestral score by the celebrated composer Erich Wolfgang
Korngold, when she declared her intensions of a navy. In the speech she
proclaims the standing up against the tyranny of one man, meaning the King
Philip II of Spain, from controlling the entire world with force. Besides Robson’s
wonderful delivery of the skillfully constructed lines, this speech served an
alternate purpose as a rallying cry by American for their allies in Britain to
defend liberty from the forces abroad in the world of 1940, meaning Nazi
Germany who had brought about a Second World War. For a short moment Robson
actually turns to the camera a delivers part of the speech making it clear that
not only is she speaking to her people in the picture, but through the screen
to audiences as the world was being threatened by Adolf Hitler and his attempt
to control the world. This moment is evident from a contemporary stand point
when put into this context which is imperative when viewing the feature.
 |
| Look! More fencing |
The Sea Hawk was a generally well-received
picture of 1940 which saw some mixed reviews form critics of its day for the
usual Curtiz film style. However the film would re-release to good numbers
years later, proving how much many enjoyed these swashbuckling films that star
Errol Flynn. Depending on how romantic one is for this style of motion picture
will affect how one enjoys The Sea Hawk
since it is a rather weakly plotted feature film. For what it is it is an
excellent picture, but is made more significant by the happenings in the world
at the time of its release.
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment