Errol Flynn puts in his second appearance upon the plague ship known as Offshore Quarantine! Flynn’s director on Captain Blood, Michael Curtiz, also helms this picture.

Here, Flynn portrays fictional Elizabethan privateer Geoffrey Thorpe, loosely based on a real-life privateer of the era whose identity shall remain undisclosed at the present time due to Admiralty sealed intelligence requirements. The diligent and historically inclined among you may be able to scry out the lay of his lineaments, and perhaps his very vestments, such as, oh, his cloak.

Released in 1940, the film is transparently about English determination to fight a European tyrant and dictator in a way that has little to do with historical Elizabethan conflicts with Spain, but as both conflicts centered on concerns of maritime invasion directed toward dear old Blighty, it’s forgivable.

The movie’s title is the same as the 1924 adaptation of yet another Rafael Sabatini novel of the same name; however this film is based on an original story by an entirely different writer, Seton Miller. This film uses footage shot for the 1924 film, sea shots of fullscale sailing vessels redressed to resemble Elizabethan-era sailing ships. The 1924 silent was the first maritime epic shot at Catalina Island, while this film relocated primary photography just across the Channel, to my wife’s beautiful hometown of Laguna Beach.

Contemporary reviewers are split on the film, as was the case on release. The film was an immediate box office success, and then an overwhelming one when rereleased in 1947 in the immediate postwar era.

Make ready, let the mainsheets there fall, and make the lines taut, I say, taut! Denature the skillets, there, and fry the watches as though ye was a band of clever gnomes! Scrub the hole and check the cat’s provisions there! Sharpish! Sharpish now! All hands aloft as we make headway down the coast to Laguna Beach and the bounding waves of the Spanish Main!

The Sea Hawk Action, Adventure, History, Romance | August 31, 1940 (United States) 7.7

Director: Michael CurtizWriter: Howard Koch, Seton I. MillerStars: Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Claude RainsSummary: Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn) is an adventurous and dashing pirate, who feels that he should pirate the Spanish ships for the good of England. In one such battle, he overtakes a Spanish ship, and when he comes aboard, he finds Doña Maria (Brenda Marshall), a beautiful Spanish royal. He is overwhelmed by her beauty, but she will have nothing to do with him because of his pirating ways (which include taking her prized jewels). To show his noble side, he suprises her by returning the jewels, and she begins to fall for him. When the ship reaches England, Queen Elizabeth I (Dame Flora Robson) is outraged at the actions of Thorpe and demands that he quit pirating. Because he cannot do this, Thorpe is sent on a mission, and in the process, becomes a prisoner of the Spaniards. Meanwhile, Doña Maria pines for Thorpe, and when he escapes, he returns to England to uncover some deadly secrets. Exciting duels follow as Thorpe must expose the evil and win Doña Maria's heart. —Julie Sherman <jsherma@hubcap.clemson.edu>

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Source: imdb.com