This is ultimately a minor entry in the wave of swashbucklers Hollywood churned out during the 1930s and ‘40s, but it’s still fun. Star Paul Henreid apparently spearheaded the project because he wanted to escape typecasting as a noble idealist. Frankly, I don’t think he pulls off the change of pace. Plus, the film’s subtext reinforces rather than challenges the persona he’d developed in Casablanca and Joan Of Paris. But Henreid gives a lively performance and is surrounded by a strong supporting cast. Director Frank Borzage brings his usual sincerity to the material, even if he doesn’t bring the verve to the action sequences that Michael Curtiz did.Henreid plays a Dutch sea captain who is transporting a group of freethinkers to North America. His ship is blown off course and captured by decadent Spanish viceroy Walter Slezak, who plans to enslave Henreid and his passengers and crew. Henreid escapes and joins a band of pirates. He eventually becomes one of their leaders. In his obsession with getting back at Slezak, he kidnaps Maureen O’Hara, the Spanish noblewoman betrothed to Slezak. O’Hara has never met Slezak, so it’s no surprise when she finds Henreid more handsome and charming. When she learns what kind of respective men Henreid and Slezak are, she begins to fall in love with Henreid. Slezak doesn’t stand a chance once Henreid falls in love with her, too!Henreid tries hard, but he just doesn’t possess the insouciance and physicality of Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks. I kept wondering how much better this RKO production might be with Fairbanks Jr. or even Louis Hayward in the lead. O’Hara and Slezak are excellent as usual, of course, as are John Emery, Barton MacLane, and Binnie Barnes as Henreid’s fellow pirate captains — Barnes as none other than Anne Bonny. As I’ve noted elsewhere, O’Hara could convey an element of kink in her performances. She does that here early on when she takes a certain amount of delight in having Henreid flogged. The action sequences lumber along clumsily — Slezak’s comeuppance is especially disappointing — but George Barnes’ Technicolor cinematography is pleasing. Also, this might be the best of the handful of film scores Hanns Eisler, one of Bertolt Brecht’s frequent collaborators, composed.The most interesting thing about The Spanish Main is its subtext. Henreid and his motley crew (Englishman J.M. Kerrigan, Frenchman Curt Bois, etc.) stand in for America’s refugee community during WWII. They’re all victims of Slezak‘s authoritarian whims. The script keeps referring to their freedom of conscience and the injustices that drove them into piracy. The parallels to the conditions that drove many of the actors in the film itself to America in the 1930s and ‘40s aren’t hard to spot. Ironically, that only serves to remind us of Henreid’s more iconic roles. The fact that RKO is obviously channeling the Warner Bros’s style of swashbuckler doesn’t help. (Henreid’s best films were made at the WB.)
- We were blown off course by a hurricane and our ship crashed on the rocks outside your harbour.- Most inconsiderate of my rocks. I shall have them reprimanded.I‘m always up for those good old pirate swashbucklers that never fail to take me back to my childhood, and lazy, classic Hollywood TV afternoons.This here was RKO‘s ambitious attempt to grab a share of Warner Brother’s pirate bounty and although the resulting film turned out to be a sizeable boxoffice hit, few movie lovers seem to remember it these days. Well, that’s their loss, I guess, 'cause RKO really went the extra mile here to produce an exciting, lavish, great-looking (even netting an Academy Award nomination for best cinematography!) adventure yarn. While it ultimately falls slightly short of the quality of genre classics like Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk or The Crimson Pirate, it’s nonetheless a delectable chunk of classy, old-fashioned entertainment. Things get off to a stormy start with Dutch Captain Laurent van Horn‘s emigrant ship wrecked off the coast of Colombia. Instead of a friendly welcome, Cartagena‘s evil Spanish governor Don Alvarado proceeds to throw the flabbergasted captain in jail and sell the surviving passengers into slavery.Flash forward five years and we’re back at sea with Mexican Contessa Francesca en route to tie the knot with Don Alvarado, sight unseen. It just so happens that former Captain van Horn is onboard too, and the Contessa takes an immediate interest in the handsome sailor. When he dares to overstep his bounds, though, she has him whipped, which is cut short by a pirate attack under the flag of the dreaded Barracuda, scourge of the Caribbean Sea. The Contessa is taken hostage aboard the vessel of captain Barracuda, who - you guessed it - is none other than the wronged van Horn, sailing on a personal mission of revenge against Don Alvarado and his ships. Getting hold of his mortal enemy‘s bride-to-be comes as an exciting bonus and the couple‘s uneasy relationship soon takes some interesting turns that culminate in their impromptu shipboard marriage. That doesn’t sit at all well with Don Alvarado, who mobilises his forces and does everything in his power to get his betrothed back and see the Barracuda and his men transferred to the gallows.So far so predictable, you might say, and you‘d be absolutely right, but then one doesn’t exactly look for originality or profundity in these things, but rather for a riproaring good time and that’s where the movie delivers. There’s hardly a beloved buccaneering cliché left unturned, whether it’s intrigues, double-crossings, mutiny and shipboard romance, or gaudy taverns, lush palaces, damp prisons, sword duels, sea-battles and thundering cannons, all of which director Frank Borzage mixes into a very tasty high seas adventure stew. Speaking of Frank Borzage, this obviously was a work for hire for Hollywood‘s master of doomed romance, but you just can’t keep a good man down and at times he nearly rises to Michael Curtiz levels of genre excellence. It helps of course to shoot in truly eye-popping Technicolor and to have a whole gallery of no-expenses-spared, drop-dead gorgeous costuming and production design at ones disposal. What’s missing unfortunately is Errol Flynn, or Tyrone Power, or Burt Lancaster, or any other experienced, personable movie buccaneer. Instead we got Paul Henreid, who’s best remembered as Bette Davis' love interest in the fabulous deluxe tearjerker Now, Voyager, or as the least interesting customer of Rick‘s Cafe in Casablanca, but who, transposed to this here Spanish Main, falls regrettably short of the movie star charisma, unbridled energy and good-natured humour someone like Errol Flynn would have brought to the table. We do get the lovely Maureen O‘Hara, though, who not only has her fair share of genre experience, but rarely looked more ravishing than here. Buying this Irish lass as a Mexican noblewoman takes a major suspension of disbelief to be sure, but the camera sure does love her and her tempestuous firebrand of a Contessa is one hell of a compensation for her slightly lacklustre co-star. No good pirate romp without a good villain and Austria-born Walter Slezak has to be one of the most memorable scoundrels out there. From the moment we first lay eyes on him, conducting some dirty business in an unflattering nightgown, this portly Don is so hilariously depraved and such a cartoonishly over-the-top tyrant that one is almost tempted to root for him, instead of the predictably do-gooding bunch of cutthroat rebels. With the notable exception of British actress Binnie Barnes as exuberant pirate captain Anne Bonny that is (a real 18th century figure, but not wholly historically accurate, I‘m afraid), who supplies an extra jolt of energy to the proceedings each time she enters a scene. Kudos to Warner Archive for treating this gaudy crowd-pleaser to a glorious restoration and making my secret pirate‘s heart beat a little faster. Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum.
