THE SEA HAWK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 85, 7 February 1941, Page 16

THE SEA HAWK

(Warner Bros.)

|F you go to "The Sea Hawk" expecting it to resemble the book by Rafael Sabatini or the silent film version (which starred, I think, Milton Sills). it is pos-

sible that you will experience some slight disappointment. Admittedly there are points of similarity: the period in both book and talkie is Elizabethan, and adventure on the high seas is the theme. But if I remember rightly, Sabatini’s tale is mostly about the Barbary pirates, whereas in the new film there isn’t a Moslem. or a minaret in sight. Instead, we have a _ pseudohistorical frolic in the style of "Fire Over England," featuring Elizabeth and her Sea Dogs versus wily King Philip and the might of Spain, with Captain Errol Flynn starred as the man who saved his country almost single-handed from the Armada. I have a feeling that Adolf Hitler was indirectly responsible for this change of

venue. Hollywood retained Sabatini’s title but scrapped the Barbary corsairs as being out of date, and took advantage of the current situation to write a completely new story drawing a topical parallel with another occasion when little England braved invasion and scattered her enemies to the winds. And unless you are wedded to your Sabatini you are not likely to object very much to the change. You may even think it is for the better. Just to avoid misrepresentation, though, I think they should have called the film something other than "The Sea Hawk." Call it what you like, it is wholehearted romantic fiction, done in the grand. manner, in which crowd scenes of English boarding-parties milling about on the decks of Spanish galleys are intermingled with individual shots of soldiers and sailors (mostly Spanish) meeting violent deaths in a variety of forms. From the palace where King Philip strikes a totalitarian pose and predicts world domination, we are taken to the spacious English court where Elizabeth wrangles with her advisers and contemporary Fifth Columnists, and tries to smooth out ruffled Spanish dignity and at the same time not discourage her Sea Dogs from plundering Spanish ships on the quiet; from there we set sail for the Spanish Main with Captain Errol Flynn and the Queen’s unofficial blessing to pilfer the gold of Panama; thence, betrayed by fate and the Fifth Column, to groan and sweat on a galley-slave’s bench alongside Captain Flynn and the survivors of his crew; and from there, learning that the Armada is " skeduled " to sail almost the next day, we escape with the gallant Captain and arrive back in England just in time to chase the Queen’s chief minister and principal Fifth Columnist up and down the palace and run him through at the very door of her boudoir, thereby convincing her of England’s danger and the need for a fleet. Finally to Tilbury with Her Most Grateful and Gracious Majesty, to see Captain Flynn knighted and reunited with the Spanish Ambassador’s beautiful niece (see "Mark of Zorro" above), who loathes and then adores the gallant_cap-_ tain, and to hear Queen Elizabeth make a stirring but historically inaccurate speech. I say "historically inaccurate " because it maintains the polite

fiction that Elizabeth was the Mother of the British Navy, whereas most schoolboys know that she starved her ships for m@ney and sent them out to beat the Armada without enough ammunition for the job. However, if one started seriously bothering about historical inaccuracies in this or the average Hollywood costume picture, one would hardly know where to stop. Earlier I called "The Sea Hawk" a "frolic," and that seems the best description for its spirit of swashbuckling, spectacular pageantry. Errol Flynn continues to impress me as a rather wooden young man trying very hard to impress me-and everybody else -that he is a great actor; but from the way he draws the crowds I have no doubt that that is a minority opinion. Flora Robson, who really can act, doesn’t bother too much, and portrays Queen Elizabeth exactly as Queen Elizabeth is always popularly expected to be portrayed. Alan Hale is satisfactorily bluff and bloodthirsty as Flynn’s chief lieutenant, and Claude Rains as the Spanish Ambassador does a grandee bit of acting. But the boys who deserve most credit are the cameramen, who get some very fine effects with sea, sky and canvas.