Oh man. This is one of THE MOST ROMANTIC BOOKS EVER. And ERROL FLYNN playing Oliver Tressilian, my young otter heart beat fast when I saw it listed in the TV Guide, back in the days before VHS, when the ONLY WAY to see any movie was to wait and wait and wait and wait and wait for it to show up at whatever time the TV gods decreed it be shown, and in whatever format (depending on how many commercials they inserted) they saw fit to show it.

But I can remember how excited I was by the thought of finally seeing this book, an incredibly romantic story of an Englishman sold into slavery to the Muslims, chained in a galley, earning his freedom to become the most dreaded pirate in the Mediterranean, preying on Christians, especially the English, from hatred of his brother and his fiancee, who betrayed him...and then they both fall into his hands...oh man. You just can't believe what a thundering good read this book is...and to see the movie!

Well...to see the movie, you have to get your hands on the silent version from 1924, because the Errol Flynn version...has nothing to do with the actual book.

Sigh. Imagine my surprise. I hated this movie for YEARS, I was so disappointed.

The story I heard was, they had bought the rights to the book and were going to make it, but then WWII broke out, and the Powers that Be decided that a patriotic flick was needed instead...so they kept the title, but wrote a completely different story.

And you know, it's really pretty good.

Elizabethan privateer Geoffrey Thorpe takes Spanish ambassador and Serious Honey (even with the bad hairdo) Claude Rains and his daughter prisoner. She, of course, starts out verbally sparring with him and ends up falling in love with him. He goes off on an expedition to Panama, fails through the evildoing of others, but manages to find out about the Armada being about to sail and saves England's bacon.

Also good in this are Henry Daniell as the bad guy, Flora Robson as an excellent Queen Liz I, Gilbert Roland as a Spanish captain, and Alan Hale as Flynn's sidekick, of course. And Flynn swashes his buckle well in this, even in the 'no shirt downtrodden galley slave' part, not bad at all.

So do watch this one, it's good. Then go and find the book, The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini, and enjoy the heck out of it. And then, come on over and we'll watch my copy of the silent film that REALLY does justice to the book...and we'll have a wonderful time.

See you then.