Against All Flags *** (1952, Errol Flynn, Maureen O’Hara, Anthony Quinn, Mildred Natwick, Robert Warwick) – Classic Movie Review 7277

‘He Ravished The Pirate Port Of Madagascar To Steal The Love Of Its Corsair Queen!’ Director George Sherman’s 1952 Against All Flags is one of Errol Flynn’s last pirate movies, with the on-form star still able to perform most of his own stunts (though not his stuntman double’s reprise of the classic Douglas Fairbanks Sr one of sliding down a sail on a rapier in the 1926 The Black Pirate), even if Flynn damaged his ankle doing them.

Against All Flags is a lively if routine swashbuckling film with a busy if routine story (by Aeneas MacKenzie) about an 18th-century British Royal Navy sailor called Brian Hawke (Flynn), who goes undercover to rout the Spanish ships, fights Indian Ocean Madagascar pirate Captain Roc Brasiliano (Anthony Quinn) and romances the lovely heroine Prudence ‘Spitfire’ Stevens (Maureen O’Hara).

Deficiencies aside, Against All Flags is always quite fun and it is short (84 minutes), brisk and businesslike, taken at commendable speed by director Sherman, and shot in ravishingly lovely Technicolor (by Russell Metty).

Also in the cast are Mildred Natwick, Robert Warwick, Harry Cording, Alice Kelley, John Alderson, Phil Tully, Lester Matthews, Tudor Owen, Maurice Marsac, James Craven and James Fairfax.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7277

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