Thanks for the memories!

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

In this mediocre at best 1951 film, Jean Peters has an absolute field day playing the commanding female pirate aboard her ship with anger against the British who had killed her half-brother.Peters handles herself well with sword and acts just like we expect a pirate to act.Louis Jourdan plays the supposed French pirate who she meets and who will ultimately lead to her downfall.Both supposedly team up to find a lost treasure. When Blackbeard, the Pirate, recognizes the Jourdan character from a previous experience, out of love for Louis, she breaks with Blackbeard and this in itself will cause her ultimate downfall with Blackbeard crying out for revenge against her.Debra Paget emerges as the wife of Jourdan who is kidnapped by Peters when she realizes that Jourdan has fooled her all along.

The legend of Anne Romney (here referred to as Anne Providence) has recently been made into a short-lived Broadway musical, but in the early 50's, there were two films about her which couldn't be any more different in presentation. Universal's "Double Crossbones" features Romney as a secondary character (played by the quite imposing looking Hope Emerson) in support of Donald O'Connor. That was a comedy/adventure, but for a more serious look at her, 20th Century Fox cast their rising player Jean Peters as the legendary captain of the Sheba Queen. Peters was much more diminutive than Emerson (best known as the evil matron in "Caged"), so it makes a different character altogether. But she is still as tough, trained by none other than Blackbeard (Thomas Gomez in a very showy performance) to captain her own ship. She is first seen in a sword fight with Blackbeard, revealed only to be for fun. When Frenchman Louis Jourdan is about to be made to walk the plank, Peters steps in to save his life, learning he is an enemy of the British. It is her love for him (an enemy of Blackbeard's) which causes her mentor to declare war on her, and she in turn, declares war on Jourdan when she learns that he is married. Herbert Marshall plays her drunken adviser who incurs her wrath when he disapproves of her revenge on Jourdan and his wife (Debra Paget).This is a colorful tale of the romanticism of pirate life that will delight fans of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series. Some parts of the movie, in fact, highly resemble the ride at Disney's Amusement Parks. From an entertainment point of view, the film works its magic and ranks a good review. Peters gives a lot of gusto to her portrayal, and Jourdan is romantic and handsome. Paget gets to be a bit more than decorative, and veteran actor Marshall gives a touching, wise performance. While the true story of Anne Romney may be quite different, this will do for a typical rousing Hollywood version of the legends of the high seas.

This is one of several period sea-faring yarns of its era, which has the added distinction (although not in itself unique) of a female buccaneer at its center. At first, both leads – Jean Peters and Louis Jourdan – might seem miscast but they grow nicely into their roles eventually, thanks no doubt to the talented players (Herbert Marshall, Thomas Gomez and James Robertson Justice) who support them. Velvety-voiced Marshall is uncharacteristically cast as the ship’s obligatory philosophical lush of a doctor, and Gomez is suitably larger-than-life as Blackbeard The Pirate.The cast is completed by Debra Paget as Jourdan’s wife, who incurs the jealous rage of the tomboyish titular character in whom Jourdan instills the first pangs of love (which, however, does not spare him the occasional flogging or sword-wound); incidentally, the film was the second exotic teaming of Jourdan and Paget in one year, following Delmer Daves’ BIRD OF PARADISE. The direct result of this unexpected softening of Anne’s character is her falling out with Blackbeard’s crew, and her unlikely climactic sacrifice in order to save the lives of the stranded Jourdan, Paget and Marshall.While the film is not a particularly outstanding example of its type, Jacques Tourneur’s energetic direction and Franz Waxman’s grandiose score ensure an above-average effort that moves along at a brisk pace; incidentally, Tourneur had already done service in the genre with the superior Burt Lancaster vehicle, THE FLAME AND THE ARROW (1950). As usual with vintage Technicolor productions, the cinematography gives the film a sumptuousness that is invigorating. By the way, differing running-times are given for this film (81 or 87 minutes) and, for the record, the version I watched was the shorter one.

I like the film, it´s the best pirate-movie I watched hitherto (forget silly Errol-Flynn-stuff and Pirates of the Caribbean). This movie is wonderful melancholic. I compare it with "Johnny Guitar" at the sea-side (but 3 years earlier), two women fighting for a man, where mad love might lead one.The character of the female (anti-) heroine, Anne Providence, is superb, acting without compromise like a child, lost alone on her search for a own female identity in a real man´s world. She´s a quite strange movie-hero, not a funny pirate, as most of her companions in this genre, not making jokes all the time, fighting for the poor and good and only killing the stupid spanish or british soldiers or - better - sly governors, but she´s murdering all the poor prisoners of war, after she captured a ship (look careful at this at the start of the movie), she´s primitive (she can´t even read), she is desperated and she get´s an alcoholic, she looses all her friends as consequence of her obstinacy and she´s wearing rags most of the film. This film shows a pirate "hero" a little (!) bit as he (or in this case "she", but there has been a female "Anne" buccaneer, Anne Boney) might have been in brutal reality.The film is quite short and the story is told in a breathtaking manner. Certainly, a film from the 1950s has no exciting special effects for present time viewers (the ships swim very obvious in a bath tube), but this real drama about love (that kills), trust, betrayal, revenge, hatred and sacrifice drives one crazy. Maybe, Anne is even supposed to be Judas Iskarioth and Jesus from Nazareth in one person, being betrayed by her friend (the french LaRochelle) as Jesus; after being disappointed by the friend, delivering him to a death penalty (as Judas); than getting remorse about this (like Judas, who commits suicide according to the gospel of Matthew); and in the end sacrificing herself for the rescue of the beloved enemy (as Jesus). But, even if you are not interested in this philosophical questions of guilt and atonement, the film brings a lot of (cheap) action as sword fights and burning (plastic) ships for a very short one and a half hour.