Against All Flags is a cheesy fifties' swashbuckler that's somehow entertaining despite some terrible acting, awful dialogue and very unconvincing effects. It stars Errol Flynn as Brian Hawke, an officer and a gentleman who goes undercover to try and overthrow a previously impregnable pirate fortress on Madagascar and Maureen O'Hara, Prudence "Spitfire" Stevens ("Pru" for short)- a "Captain" on that island, though not a conventional one and of course not as terrible as she at first appears. Anthony Quinn hams it up enthusiastically as mega-evil pirate captain Roc Brasiliano, who is naturally suspicious of Hawke and naturally is the third part of their love triangle. Even when it was released in the early fifties it must have appeared cliché, but then how many pirate films haven't?!
Anyway, as you would be able to tell from the tagline, "He Ravished The Pirate Port Of Madagascar To Steal The Love Of Its Corsair Queen!", this is pure pantomime. The plot has its good points, a few twists here and there (not all of them obvious!), and Anthony Quinn is fun to watch as he swaggers and blusters about. Errol Flynn was clearly well past his best in this and many of the action scenes, mostly consisting of swordfights, were less than thrilling; however there is a generous amount of daft humour thrown in to help things along. The acting reaches an all-time low when Alice Kelley is the world's least convincing Indian princess (though she is convincingly idiotic), but even this brings some ironic humour out.
The start of the film contains one of the few instances of good dialogue - "A good man is always remembered, Hawke" ... "a good man doesn't always live long enough to be remembered" - but it rarely reaches that level again and sometimes it's genuinely atrocious. Maureen O'Hara has some of the worst lines and is also guilty of some pretty cringe-worthy acting - I don't think she'd view this as one of her memorable appearances. Of the other cast members only Mildred Natwick stands out in my memory as governess Molvina MacGregor - not always for the right reasons, but somehow cranky Scots are usually entertaining, and in a small part, James Fairfax is quite fun as the pirate's barber.
The sets are fairly good but the effects, such as they are, really look bad even considering when the movie was made. The music is the usual jolly seafaring stuff - Hans J. Salter's original score is inoffensive and forgettable. Pru is not likeable enough to really engage the audience's sympathies even by the end of the film; if she had been, it might have made a lot of difference to the film's overall effect.
The writing by Aeneas MacKenzie is not great, but there has been much worse in Hollywood's history... it's hardly a must-see if you like pirate films, but if you like the stars, you'll find Against All Flags mildly diverting. It has quite a lot of good ideas, but the execution lets it down, rendering it a mainly decent film with some admittedly awful moments. Don't go out of your way to see it!
(I'm not really convinced it deserves 3 stars, but somehow it feels mean to give it 2... but not particularly recommended, of course.)
Other Information
Directed by George Sherman Runtime: 93 minutes Rating: PG
Trivia
In her autobiography "'Tis Herself", 'Maureen O'Hara' says that Errol Flynn was always prepared, always knew his lines, and was a pleasure to work with in the mornings. But he drank and by 4pm was in no shape to continue. She did all the romantic close-ups at the end of the day with a black flag marked "X" to represent Flynn.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.