Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The Black Pirate (1926)If Warner Bros. put out this film, it would be dark and terrifying. All the gritty awful moments, like a pirate casually sticking the sword into his victim, would be unwatchable. And it would have been in cold black and white.But this is a Douglas Fairbanks film, and in his world, which he controlled in this movie completely (his own Elton Corporation funded it), everything must be cheery. Even when the cast is made of the lowest kind of pirate. "The Black Pirate" is almost a satire right from the title, and it's shot in two-color Technicolor which gives it a rather nice, low-key tinted appearance, and of course our black pirate is not black in skin or in spirit. As his antics and smiles win over this motley crew, it has to be something like a comedy, except for its other sense of high drama and heroism.Optimism always wins, so you know at the start how it ends. What you don't know is what clever tricks, and physical feats, and twists of plot, will be called to arms to get there. Fairbanks from the 21st Century has become a kind of caricature, something the great comics avoided. Watch a Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton comedy, and the leads are never characters to laugh at, but here, in the theater I just watched this in, there was a kind of appreciative mockery in the laughter, like, "Here he goes again." And he does "go again" up the rigging and down sails and in underwater heroics. If you haven't seen a Fairbanks, movie, this is a good one to start with. It never slows down, and you really can appreciate the fun, the pure fun, that Fairbanks the actor and producer guaranteed his pre-Depression audiences.

Douglas Fairbanks Sr. stars in this exciting, action-packed swashbuckling pirate adventure yarn, as a young man seeking revenge on a band of pirates after they ransacked and destroyed his ship, killing his father. In trying to achieve his goal, he tricks the pirates into thinking he wants to join their band. Will this ruse work?This delivers all the thrills and cutthroat pirate action anyone could ever hope for and even more. It has all the elements one looks for and wants from today's big blockbusters: impressive stunts mostly performed by Fairbanks himself, sword fights, pirate treachery, explosions, daring underwater scenes, a damsel in distress, the works. There's a few plot holes and questionable plot twists here and there but it all holds up incredibly well after all these years although in today's world lead actress Billie Dove would have been given more to do. That's a minor nitpick at best. If you like pirate yarns, check this out. Believe me, they just don't get much better than this.

I generally have some reservations about tuning in to a silent film, but once I do, they usually turn out pretty well. "The Black Pirate" was no exception, my first encounter with the legendary silent action-adventure hero Douglas Fairbanks (Sr.). His swashbuckling feats of dynamic swordplay and athletic scaling of ship's rigging were genuine sit up and take notice moments, especially since he was doing all of his own stunt work. It wouldn't be too far off to say he does it all here, including the obligatory 'walk the plank' as a result of trying to help a captive Princess escape her pirate captors.One downside of my experience of this film based on other reviewers - the print I saw was in black and white. Even so, there was enough going on to maintain one's interest, not the least of which was all the cutthroat pirate chicanery. I was surprised how the film intimated how a poor crewman was slit open to retrieve a ring he swallowed to prevent it's becoming booty. That was a nasty piece of business.The one scene that played out amazingly well both visually and the way it was choreographed was the underwater swim by the seamen who arrived by longboat to help Fairbanks' character defeat the pirates. One thing though, once on board the Merchantman, didn't it seem like there was a whole lot more of them than could have arrived in the first place? One curiosity, the pirate crew liked the idea of holding the Merchantman ransom for fifty thousand pieces-of-eight, suggested by Fairbanks' character. However if you freeze the frame on the first part of the ransom note to the Governor, the amount demanded in Roman numerals is XXVII (assuming that what looks like a 'C' is actually a parenthesis). That would only represent twenty seven, as the word 'thousand' is written out.As much fun as the film is, if you're really paying attention, a couple of plot points just don't make much sense. After Fairbanks defeats the Pirate Captain (Anders Randolf) in a sword fight challenge, the Captain falls on a sword and dies. Just like that, the rest of the pirate crew have no trouble accepting Fairbanks as part of their crew. So much for loyalty! Another occurs at the end of the film when Fairbanks and The Princess (Billie Dove) declare their love and announce their wedding. MacTavish (Donald Crisp) suggests digging up the earlier buried treasure for a wedding gift. I don't think so.But let's not get too critical. This is a neatly done sea tale with a lot of well paced action and drama. A surprise in reviewing the cast list reveals Mary Pickford as a stand-in for Billie Dove in the 'final embrace' scene at the end of the story. There really doesn't seem to be any reason for that, other than a chance for Mr. Fairbanks to get Mrs. Fairbanks into the picture. Trivia fans take note.

015: The Black Pirate (1926) - released 3/8/1926, viewed 8/10/05 Scotch Tape is invented. Gosden and Correll begin broadcasting their radio show Sam 'n' Henry, a precursor to Amos 'n' Andy. John Logie Baird demonstrates a mechanical television system. The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon burns down.BIRTHS: Margaret Thatcher, Angela Lansbury, Johnny Carson, Jonathan Winters, Robert Kennedy, Sammy Davis Jr., Dick Van Dyke, George Martin, Patricia Neal, Haskell Wexler, Leslie Neilsen, John Schlesinger, Alan Greenspan.KEVIN: It was interesting to see the early two-strip Technicolor process used in this film. There are so very few silent color films. One of the effects of the color is it makes the occasional violence a little more chilling, as the blood is actually red. The best part is definitely when he takes the ship single-handed. We listened to a bit of Rudy Behlmer's commentary, where he mentioned how Fairbanks worked really hard to stay in shape all the time, unlike Errol Flynn, who endeavored to have alcohol in his body at all times. Watching this film, I feel like we should have watched Fairbanks' earlier stuff, like Mark of Zorro, and we'll probably go back and watch that stuff later on. This movie was plenty exciting, with all the crazy swordfight action. I thought it was kind of weird when he swims ashore and comes back with a whole boatload of longboat rowing soldiers out of nowhere. I could buy the conjured army in Thief of Bagdad because it was a fantasy, but here it's a little more difficult. I couldn't stop thinking, "Where'd he dig up all these guys?" DOUG: Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin may have ruled the world of silent comedies, but Douglas Fairbanks Sr. was the king of the silent action/adventure movie. This film is notable for using an early two-strip version of Technicolor (which we just saw in Phantom). It is an excellent example of a Douglas Fairbanks movie, showing off his usual bravado. It seems like every Fairbanks movie ends with our hero summoning an army out of nowhere just when he needs it. I mean, where did that longboat come from? And he also makes fighting off a horde of swordsmen look easy. We listened to a bit of Rudy Behlmer's commentary, which mentions that Fairbanks always went to great lengths to stay physically fit (unlike, say, Errol Flynn, who would smuggle alcohol onto the set in hidden flasks and injected oranges), and did many of his own daring stunts. Behlmer also mentions that Fairbanks' wife Mary Pickford was filming her movie, Sparrows, at the same time, on the very same lot. Hey, we're watching that next! Last film viewed: Phantom of the Opera (1925). Last film chronologically: Battleship Potemkin (1925). Next film viewed: Sparrows (1926). Next film chronologically: For Heaven's Sake (1926).The Movie Odyssey is an exhaustive, chronological project where we watch as many milestone films as possible, starting with D.W. Griffith's Intolerance in 1916 and working our way through, year by year, one film at a time. We also write a short review for each film before we watch the next, never reading the other's review before we finish our own. In this project, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of the time period, the films of the era, and each film in context, while at the same time just watching a lot of great movies, most of which we never would have watched otherwise.