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Evoking Swashbuckling Romance: Hollywood Pirate Ships & Shores in Miniature, & More
A brief place-holder blog post (and at the bottom a not quite shameless plug for Blood & Plunder by Firelock Games) while I finish several more challenging posts in the queue.
Before the advent of CGI, many swashbuckler films used models of ship and shore, along with full-size ships built on sound stages, to both recreate environments no longer available and also to save money. To some degree the early miniatures may seem quaint today, as compared to CGI, although in my opinion bad CGI is worse–more jarring to the eye–by far than an obvious model.
These old sets and scenes evoke nostalgia for the entire spectacle of old Hollywood swashbucklers: the cinemas with their great screens and clicking film projectors, the lasting impressions left by thundering broadsides and clashing swords, and above all the image of pirate ships in tropical waters.
For fun, here are a few.
Publicity still, The Sea Hawk (Warner Bros., 1940).
Above, the Albatross, commanded by Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn) arrives in a secluded cove on the Isthmus of Panama in order to raid the silver trains. The film scenes set in the Old World are in black and white, while those in the Americas are in sepia.
Only the film title is actually based on the novel by Rafael Sabatini, which tells the story of an English gentleman who turns Barbary corsair in an act of revenge. The 1940 film is a not even thinly-veiled wartime propaganda piece, albeit an enjoyable one. English sea dogs are renamed in the scrip as patriotic sea hawks suppressed by treasonous machinations until the doughty hero (Errol Flynn) reveals the treachery and England arms the sea hawks against Nazi Germany Imperial Spain. For more information try The Sea Hawk, edited by Rudy Behlmer. It’s a fun read for anyone interested in the script and the film’s history.
Publicity still, Captain Blood, Warner Bros., 1935.
Next, we have the models of Port Royal and the French flagship used in the finale. This image is not of an actual scene from the 1935 Captain Blood starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Basil Rathbone, but of the set prior to shooting.
Detail from the photograph above.
Of course, the real Port Royal looked nothing like this. It was actually crammed with English-style brick buildings of two and even three floors, unlike this Southern California Spanish colonial revival-influenced town. But it’s sets like these in Hollywood swashbucklers that have influenced our notions of what the seventeenth century Caribbean looked like. In fact, the region at the time had a wide variety or environments and architectures.
Publicity still, Captain Blood (Warner Bros., 1935).
Above we have the battle in Port Royal harbor during the finale of Captain Blood: the Arabella on the left versus the French flagship on the right. N. B. Royal sails (the smallest on the ship on the right, the fourth sail from the bottom) were not used in this era. Their use here is an anachronism. In fact, only exceedingly rarely was the topgallant sail (the third sail from the bottom, used on “tall ships” on the fore and main masts) seen on the mizzenmast or sprit-mast on the bowsprit. I know of only two seventeenth century instances, each noted as being highly unusual. One was Kidd’s Adventure Galley in the very late seventeenth century, the other was a Spanish ship in 1673.
Publicity still, The Black Swan (Twentieth Century Fox, 1942).
A pirate ship under full sail in action against ships at anchor and shore targets during the finale of The Black Swan starring Tyrone Power and Maureen O’Hara. The film is based on the somewhat similar novel by Rafael Sabatini.
Screen capture, The Spanish Main (RKO 1945).
A pirate ship sailing into Cartagena de Indias under the guns of a castle in The Spanish Main starring Maureen O’Hara and Paul Henreid.
Publicity still, Against All Flags (Universal International Pictures, 1952).
Over-large pirate ship and treasure ship of the “Great Mogul” in Against All Flags. The ships are engaged under full sail, a practice generally not seen in reality except in the case of a running fight, but quite common in Hollywood because it looks good. Here, both ships would have stripped to “fighting sail” for a variety of reasons, including simplified ship-handling in action. The film stars Errol Flynn, as Brian Hawke, in one of his last swashbucklers (followed finally by The Master of Ballantrae in 1953 and Crossed Swords in 1954). It also stars Maureen O’Hara wielding a sword as Prudence ‘Spitfire’ Stevens, something I always enjoy.
Image courtesy of Firelock Games.
And now, a not quite shameless plug for Firelock Games’s Blood & Plunder tabletop war game of piracy and much, much more–one need not take the side of pirates to play. A full spectrum of peoples and forces are available.
Full disclosure: I’m the game’s historical consultant, and I thought it would be fun to compare the Blood & Plunder models to the film models above.
So, above and coming soon: a small Spanish galleon. Historically accurate, the model also evokes the best of old Hollywood swashbucklers.
Image courtesy of Firelock Games.
A small Spanish frigate engaged with a French brigantine.
Image courtesy of Firelock Games.
Spanish and French brigantines engaged near shore. Which is the pirate? (Answer: either could be!)
Photo courtesy of Firelock Games.
A small fluyt (in English a pink, in French a flibot, in Spanish an urqueta, on the left; a galleon at center; a brigantine on the right.
Photo courtesy of Firelock Games.
Close up action!
Image courtesy of Firelock Games.
Brigantine crewed by, I believe, French flibustiers.
Information about the game is available on Facebook and the company’s website.
Copyright Benerson Little 2018. First posted April 16, 2018.
Women Epeeists
A quick post on women and epee fencing, inspired by the photograph of Frances Drake above. She was a Hollywood actress (or actor, if you prefer more modern usage) from the 1930s. The photograph dates to 1934, although I’ve been unable so far to identify the film for which this and similar publicity stills were made. I’d like to, for the the photograph is unusual in that it shows her with epees, not foils.
Until the 1980s, women were not permitted to fence epee in competition due to a patronizing chauvinism (I suppose all chauvinism is patronizing, though) that decreed that women were (1) too weak to fence epee, or saber for that matter, and (2) shouldn’t be fencing epee or saber which were originally dueling arms, therefore “man’s weapons.”
The attitude persisted well into the 1980s and even beyond with some male fencers and fencing masters. Around 1980 I had some lessons from a famous epee master, and as I walked on the strip epee-in-hand for his first epee lesson of the day, and my first with him ever, he smiled and said, “Ah, finally a man’s weapon!” In part he meant it as a compliment in that I was fencing epee, not foil, and therefore as a bit of a dig at foil as well. Still, the comment is instructive and indicative of the attitude at the time. In his defense, most fencing masters would not teach epee or saber to women at the time, even if they believed them suitable to the weapons, for there were no competitions in them available to women, certainly not at the national level.
A Castello practice epee in my collection, complete with point d’arrêt and a guard quite torn up by the points d’arrêt of numerous adversaries. The wide bell guard originally supported a short-lived French-Italian combination grip, one with an Italian crossbar connected to a French grip. It was listed in the Castello catalog as a “French-Italian Duelling Sword.” An epee with a screw-on pommel was up to this era known as an épée démontable or “interchangeable epee,” as Félix Gravé describes it. Not only was it easier to replace broken blades, but the practice blade could be exchanged with a real blade in case of a duel, making the transition from practice weapon to real one less likely to affect grip, balance, &c.
Of course, more than three decades of women fencing epee and saber have disproved any such absurd notions that women can’t manage these weapons. Just fence my wife sometime if you don’t believe me.
Recently, I obtained a copy of Fencing Comprehensive by Félix Gravé, published in 1934. In it he makes reference to women epee fencers, in particular to how they should dress when fencing epee, clearly indicating that some women did indeed fence epee in the 1930s, and not just Ms. Drake in a Hollywood photo shoot. The fact that there were women epeeists in the 1930s pleases me inordinately.
From Fencing Comprehensive by Félix Gravé, 1934.
As for the epees Ms. Drake is holding, they’re probably Castello epees. The guards appear to be aluminum with steel reinforcements. In the 1930s, epee guards were usually made either of rolled steel or of aluminum, with either flat steel reinforcements, as with hers, or angled washers made of either steel or aluminum, as in the image above. The pommels are two-piece, of aluminum and brass, again as in the same image.
Drake’s fencing jacket is quilted, a type difficult to find anymore although once common. The last I saw for sale from major vendors was in the early 1990s. The glove is decorated and might not actually be a fencing glove–epee gloves at this time had leather palms and fingers with “sailcloth” backs and cuffs.
Woman epeeist on the cover of the French magazine, La Revue, September 1941.
As for women epeeists today, of the five epeeists I consider to have been the greatest in the past century, two of them are women: Timea Nagy of Hungary and Laura Flessel-Colovic of France. Frankly, I prefer women’s epee, for it balances technique with tactics, with speed and strength in support. Too many male epeeists try to reverse this, putting technique and tactics as subordinate to speed and strength. Usually they would fence better if they’d follow the practice of most women epeeists.
In sum: long live women epeeists!
My wife, on the left, competing in Colombia a few years ago.
Copyright Benerson Little, 2018. First published February 16, 2018. Last updated May 25, 2021.
Holiday Wishes! (And Some Hollywood Swashbuckler Biographies)
Wishing everyone Happy Holidays, however you celebrate them! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Solstice, Happy New Year (Western and Chinese)–all and more as you wish and please. It’s a secular Christmas here: Santa Claus, reindeer and sleigh, Douglas fir tree (except this year due to the nation-wide shortage, we cut a Virginia pine locally instead), stockings hung by the chimney with care, homemade cookies, fire in the fireplace, books read to children (and to nearby listening adults), much gift giving, plus Basil Rathbone, Albert Finney, Michael Caine, George C. Scott, Mister Magoo (aka Jim Backus of Gilligan’s Island fame), Reginald Owen, and Seymour Hicks as Scrooge, plus occasional swords and sword adventure with musketeers and pirates (and dark rum left for Santa as he makes his rounds), along with the usual excellent food, drink, family, and good cheer.
That said, this is a blog and therefore a suitable place to give praise to the four swashbucklers in the image above, from the 1952 RKO film, At Sword’s Point, also released as The Sons of the Musketeers. The movie is not considered to be the best of its genre, yet is still better than most and worth watching just to see Maureen O’Hara wield a sword–and there’s more to see than just O’Hara’s swordplay and independence, although as noted she alone makes the film worthwhile.
So, from left to right…
Alan Hale Jr. as Porthos Jr.
Alan Hale Jr., a solid more-than-character actor appeared in many films but is by far best known for his role as Jonas Grumby aka “the Skipper” in Gilligan’s Island.
Publicity still of Alan Hale Jr. as Jonas Grumby aka “The Skipper” in Gilligan’s Island.
Hale Jr. also starred as Porthos Sr. in a 1970s version of The Man in the Iron Mask entitled The Fifth Musketeer, a film that rounded up a variety of aging actors who had starred in swashbuckling and adventure stage, film, or television, and tossed them in with luminaries such as Rex Harrison and Olivia de Havilland, with up and comers such as Beau Bridges and Ian McShane, and with the addition of Ursula Andress and Sylvia Kristel, the latter best-known for the erotic Emmanuelle films. But not even this sterling cast could hold the film together, even coming as it did on the heels of the recent Three Musketeers and Four Musketeers films.
Alan Hale Jr. (far right) as Porthos in The Fifth Musketeer (1979). From left: Lloyd Bridges (whom I once “saw” as an early toddler in a film theater in Key West while he was there filming Sea Hunt), Jose Ferrer, Beau Bridges (son of Lloyd), Cornel Wilde, and Alan Hale Jr. (Columbia Pictures lobby card, 1979.)
If Alan Hale Jr. looks familiar to fans of older films, he should, for as Porthos Jr. and Porthos Sr., Hale makes an homage to his father, Alan Hale Sr., who appeared in a fair number of swashbucklers, most famously The Sea Hawk, Robin Hood, and The Adventures of Don Juan, all starring his close friend Errol Flynn. In Robin Hood he reprised his role as Little John, having first played the character in the extravagant silent version by swashbuckling film star, producer, and director Douglas Fairbanks. He took up the role again in 1950 in Rogues of Sherwood Forest. Hale, born Rufus Edward MacKahan, co-starred in several other Flynn films as well: Dodge City, Virginia City, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, and several others for a total of thirteen films.
Alan Hale Sr. as Little John in The Adventures of Robin Hood (Warner Bros., 1938), starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Claude Raines.
Screen capture from the Gilligan’s Island Christmas episode (“Birds Gotta Fly, Fish Gotta Talk”), 1964. Alan Hale Jr. plays Santa, whom the castaways believe is the Skipper. But is Santa actually the Skipper?
Maureen O’Hara as Claire, Daughter of Athos
I’ll doubtless devote an entire post one day to Maureen O’Hara and her swordplay in swashbucklers. Alas, as often as she wielded a sword in a swashbuckler, she did not in another. In The Spanish Main and The Black Swan, the most successful of her swashbucklers, she had no sword-in-hand (although Binnie Barnes took up the blade admirably in the former). So, until I post a full article on O’Hara, here are a few images of the strong-willed, independent, red-headed, Dublin-born and raised actress (or actor, if you prefer):
Maureen O’Hara engaging multiple adversaries in At Sword’s Point.
Not dressed for swordplay. O’Hara in At Sword’s Point.
Fencing a Cardinal’s guard in At Sword’s Point, O’Hara still not dressed for swordplay.
As Spitfire in At Sword’s Point, co-starring Errol Flynn in his last swashbuckler. O’Hara carries the film and in the climax gets to engage in swordplay once more on film.
O’Hara engaging blades in Against All Flags.
Maureen O’Hara in one of her most famous roles, in the holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street. With her are Edmund Gwenn and a very young Natalie Wood.
Cornel Wilde as d’Artagnan Jr.
Born to Czech-Hungarian parents in Manhattan, Cornel Wilde often traveled with his father to Europe where he picked up several languages and, reportedly, skill at fencing. An avid and outstanding fencer, Wilde turned down membership on the US saber team for the 1936 Olympic Games in order to accept a theatrical position–a decision few fencers would ever consider making. It’s one thing to give up a potential or possible eventual position on an Olympic fencing team, quite another to give up an offered one. That said, the several actors I know with fencing experience might very choose an opportunity in the form of a middling role in film or theater over fencing in the Olympic Games, although I’m sure the decision wouldn’t be an easy one.
Wilde fencing-brawling in At Sword’s Point.
An accomplished actor, Wilde’s looks, swordplay, and athleticism led him to starring roles in numerous swashbucklers.
Wilde fencing Herbert Lom (of the Pink Panther films fame) in The Star of India.
Wilde furthered his fencing study in the US under famous Hungarian-born fencing master Joseph Vince who had a studio and fencing supplier company first in New York City, later in Beverly Hills. Wilde even illustrated Vince’s book on fencing.
Illustration by Cornel Wilde for Fencing by Joseph Vince.
When fencing jackets were indeed dashing. My first jacket, purchased in 1977.
If I have a favorite of Wilde’s films, it is almost certainly The Naked Prey. Relegated to cult film status by many today, it is best considered as an action art film, if such a category exist. In any case, it is a minor classic (Criterion has released it), notwithstanding mixed reviews. Wilde was fifty-two when he produced, directed, and starred in the film, a physically demanding starring role for anyone, not to mention that he was ill most of the time–demands that most men even half his age probably could not have handled.
Lobby card from The Naked Prey (1965).
Dan O’Herlihy as Aramis Jr.
An accomplished actor who should be better known today, O’Herlihy played a variety or roles during his long career, ranging from several swashbucklers to serious contemporary roles to character pieces such as “The Old Man” in the RoboCop films.
As Alan Breck [Stewart] in Kidnapped, also starring Roddy McDowell. (1948.)
O’Herlihy was nominated for an Oscar for his starring role in Robinson Crusoe, directed by famous-auteur-to-be Luis Buñuel.
Robinson Crusoe poster, 1954. The film was produced and made in Mexico for the English-speaking market. A Spanish language version was also produced.
Ever the distinguished-voiced actor’s friend: audio books.
Audio book on vinyl: Dan O’Herlihy reading A Christmas Carol. Four records at 16 RPM, I can’t even recall that speed on a turntable… (The Billboard, October 26, 1959.)
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Copyright Benerson Little 2017-2018. First posted December 20, 2017, last updated January 7, 2018.
Swordplay & Swashbucklers 