The Sea Hawk ***** (1940, Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Claude Rains, Henry Daniell, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale) – Classic Movie Review 3860

The 1940 adventure film The Sea Hawk is a thrilling vintage sea-borne swashbuckler telling a new story based on the exploits of Sir Francis Drake. Errol Flynn is on his finest swashbuckling form as the English sea captain Geoffrey Thorpe.

Director Michael Curtiz’s 1940 American historical adventure film The Sea Hawk from Warner Bros is a thrilling vintage sea-borne swashbuckler supposedly based on the 1915 novel by Rafael Sabatini, but actually telling a new story based on the exploits of Sir Francis Drake.

Errol Flynn is on his finest swashbuckling form as the English buccaneer sea captain, Geoffrey Thorpe, whom Queen Elizabeth I (Flora Robson) commands to defend English interests on the eve of the launch of the Spanish Armada and wreak havoc on the enemy Spanish fleet.

Jack L Warner, Hal B Wallis and Henry Blanke’s opulent Warner Bros production is gorgeously lensed by cinematographer Sol Polito in black and white, although you do miss the Technicolor photography that you would expect from a big-budget epic of this era.

It is also beautifully designed by Anton Grot and the movie is excitingly directed by Curtiz. The other main assets are Henry Daniell as a splendid villain, Lord Wolfingham, Claude Rains as Don José Alvarez de Cordoba, Donald Crisp as Sir John Burleson, Alan Hale as Carl Pitt, Una O’Connor as Miss Latham, James Stephenson as Abbott and Gilbert Roland as Captain Lopez, as well as some white-knuckle action and a stupendous, tremendously stirring Erich Wolfgang Korngold music score.

It is a highlight of Korngold’s career, but it was not until 1962 that even some of it was released on the LP titled Music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Finally in 2007, Naxos released a complete recording by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra and Chorus led by William T Stromberg and reconstructed by John W Morgan. Also, in 1972, Korngold’s record producer son George Korngold and the conductor/ arranger Charles Gerhardt included seven minutes of the score on the RCA album The Classic Film Scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

It is a remake of a once famous silent film of 1924, The Sea Hawk, with Milton Sills as the English buccaneer sea captain Sir Oliver Tressilian, Enid Bennett, Lloyd Hughes, Wallace MacDonald, Marc McDermott and Wallace Beery as the pirate captain Jasper Leigh.

The 1924 film is fairly faithful to Sabatini’s plot but the 1940 film uses a different story inspired by the exploits of Sir Francis Drake. It is written by Howard Koch and Seton I Miller. There is a smooth outcome, but as usual with the big studios it was a tortuous path to the result.

Warner Bros got both Richard Neville and Delmer Daves to write scripts adapting the novel, but then Seton I Miller wrote a new story called Beggars of the Sea based on the life of Sir Francis Drake. Then Howard Koch reworked Miller’s script but kept his story and plot structure. This didn’t stop Warners using Sabatini’s name in promoting the film, as they felt it would sell tickets. That led to a lot of confusion later about the basis of the film. Interestingly, the script also includes a strong undercurrent element of World War Two propaganda to build British morale and influence Americans to support the British. It is implied that the world does not belong to any one man and it is the duty of all free men to defend liberty. The enemy King Philip II of Spain (Montagu Love) is shown as a Hitler figure and the queen’s final speech is there to inspire the war-afflicted British.

Also in the cast of The Sea Hawk are William Lundigan, J M Kerrigan, Julian Mitchell, David Bruce, Frank Wilcox, Herbert Anderson, Clifford Brooks, Charles Irvin, Clyde Cook, Edgar Buchanan, Ellis Irving, Montagu Love, Francis McDonald, Pedro de Cordoba, Ian Keith, Jack La Rue, Fritz Leiber, Halliwell Hobbes, Alec Craig, Frank Lackteen, Victor Varconi, Lester Matthews, Leonard Mudie, Robert Warwick, Harry Cording, Nestor Paiva, Frederic Worlock, David Thursby, Michael Harvey, Gerald Mohr, Leyland Hodgson, Colin Kenny, Crauford Kent, Elizabeth Sifton, and Mary Anderson.

It was released on 1 July 1940 and was Warners’ most expensive and most popular film of 1940. It cost $1,701,211, and made $1,631,000 in the US and $1,047,000 elsewhere. It was re-released in 1947 for another box office bonanza.

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Art Direction Black-and-White (Anton Grot), Original Score (Erich Wolfgang Korngold), Sound Recording (Nathan Levinson), and Special Effects (Byron Haskin, Nathan Levinson).

The Sea Hawk was colorised in 1986 and released on VHS, but only the black-and-white versions, both edited (109 minutes) and restored/ uncut (127 minutes), have been released on DVD. Parts of the film set in the Americas were tinted sepia.

It is Flynn’s tenth film with Michael Curtiz.

Bette Davis plays Queen Elizabeth I in the previous year’s Errol Flynn movie The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). Flora Robson is excellent, in a fine, stern, reined-in performance, but you do slightly miss the more showy extravagance of Davis’s performance. Was she unavailable? Did Warners ask her? Did she not want to do it? Did Flynn not want her?

It was first announced back in 1936 when Flynn was riding high with Captain Blood.

The Sea Hawk is directed by Michael Curtiz, runs 127 minutes (or 109 minutes), is made and released by Warner Bros, is written by Howard Koch and Seton I Miller, is shot in black and white by Sol Polito, is produced by Jack L Warner, Hal B Wallis and Henry Blanke, and is scored by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

The cast are Errol Flynn as Geoffrey Thorpe, Brenda Marshall as Doña María, Claude Rains as Don José Álvarez de Córdoba, Donald Crisp as Sir John Burleson, Flora Robson as Queen Elizabeth I of England, Alan Hale Sr as Carl Pitt, Henry Daniell as Lord Wolfingham, Una O’Connor as Miss Latham, James Stephenson as Abbott, Gilbert Roland as Captain López, William Lundigan as Danny Logan, Julien Mitchell as Oliver Scott, Montagu Love as King Philip II of Spain, J. M. Kerrigan as Eli Matson, David Bruce as Martin Burke, Clifford Brooke as William Tuttle, Clyde Cook as Walter Boggs, Fritz Leiber Sr as Inquisitor, Ellis Irving as Monty Preston, Francis McDonald as Samuel Kroner, Pedro de Córdoba as Captain Mendoza, Ian Keith as Peralta, Jack La Rue as Lieutenant Ortega, Halliwell Hobbes as Astronomer, Alec Craig as Jodocus Hondius, Victor Varconi as General Aguirre, Robert Warwick as Captain Frobisher, Guy Bellis as Captain Hawkins, Harry Cording as Slavemaster, Leyland Hodgson as Officer, Leo White as Bit Role, and Edgar Buchanan as Ben Rollins.

Admittedly, Geoffrey isn’t perhaps the best name ever for a world saver. But then probably Francis isn’t either. Thor Thorpe would have been good.

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