THE SPOILERS.  Selig Polyscope Co., 1914; Colin Campbell, director; William Farnum, Tom Santschi, Kathlyn Williams, Wheeler Oakman. Shown at Cinecon 41, September 2005.

   The first filming of Rex Beach’s Alaskan adventure novel, with a fifth version released in 1955. A knockdown fist fight is the high point of the film, with the fight between John Wayne and Randolph Scott in a 1942 version still fondly remembered by filmgoers of my generation.

   In this first silent version, William Farnum (a big man with a pummeling technique) goes at it with Tom Santschi. The fight is filmed in a small interior set that doesn’t give the actors much room to maneuver but heightens the scene’s excitement. The print was a bit light but this doesn’t detract significantly from the atmospheric staging.

   Sets seem (at times) makeshift, although this gives a realistic look to the Alaskan frontier setting at a time when towns went up almost overnight as goldhunters poured into the region.

   Tempers flare frequently, the corporate and political villains haven’t a decent bone in their bodies, and the screen seems at times to explode from the vitality of the almost primitive action and emotions.

   A vibrant example of early feature length filmmaking that’s no lost masterpiece but still a very entertaining take on a historical period.

THE DEVIL-SHIP PIRATES. Hammer Films/Columbia, 1964. Christopher Lee, Barry Warren, John Cairney, Suzan Farmer, Michael Ripper, Duncan Lamont, Andrew Keir, Natasha Pyne. Screenwriter: Jimmy Sangster. Director: Don Sharp.

   This is the movie that’s paired with The Pirates of Blood River (1960) in a recently released boxed set of Hammer films entitled “Icons of Adventure.” (You can go back and read my review of the latter here.) Both star Christopher Lee as the head of their respective ragtail crew of pirates, both were written by Jimmy Sangster, and that’s not all.

   They both have the same basic story line. In the commentary track for this film, Jimmy Sangster even admits it, calling it your basic “Humphrey Bogart in The Desperate Hours” plot, in which a gang of escaped killers take over a suburban household (or a gang of pirates take over an isolated village) only to find their captives not quite to be the pushovers they expected.

   In The Devil-Ship Pirates, the pirates have been aligned with Spain at the time of the defeat of the Armada, and as one of the ships that survived but unable to return to Spain — and having no real allegiance to that country — land near an isolated village which they then take over, on the ruse that the Spanish won. The local mayor is all too willing to kowtow to the town’s new masters, but not all of the townsfolk are so readily inclined.

   Comparing the reviews of both movies which I’ve discovered online, results as to which movie was favored over the other are mixed, but mostly it boils down to which of the pair you happen to watch first.

   Myself, I think that the basic idea was fresher in Blood River, and the actors were better (Oliver Reed was in the first one, for example, and not the second) and unless my biases are showing, and I’m sure they are, even the actresses were comelier in the first. (But do take note of the lady above, the daughter of the local mayor and the rebel hero’s girl friend.)

   Granted, what the first movie lacked were any scenes with a real boat in it. This one does, although I suspect that the ships shown firing cannons at each other in the opening scenes came from storeroom footage. But the ship that lands on the English shoreline, right up to the water’s edge, was carefully constructed and used as one of several primary filming areas.

   The money that was spent on it was put to good use, but as the commentary reveals, the ship suffered a serious accident during the course of the movie, and it goes up in flames at the end – gloriously done, but perhaps as a direct consequence, The Devil-Ship Pirates was the last pirate film that Hammer Films ever did.

   Overall, in spite of the second-hand story line, there is much to find in this movie to be entertained by. The English village was painstakingly re-created (and almost surely was used again, both before and after), and the colors throughout the film are gloriously vivid. Spectacular, as a matter of fact, as I hope these photos will attest to.

THE PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER. Hammer Films, 1962. Kerwin Mathews, Christopher Lee, Andrew Keir, Glenn Corbett, Marla Landi, Michael Ripper, Peter Arne, Oliver Reed, Marie Devereux. Screenwriters: John Hunter & John Gilling, based on a story by Jimmy Sangster. Director: John Gilling.

   Hammer is known mostly for their horror films, of course, but over the course of the years, they did many other kinds of movies, including noir — I have several on tap to watch, and you’ll see them reviewed here soon enough, I hope — and action-adventure films, such as this one. I even had to create a new category for it, as I’m sure you’ve already have noted.

   There’s no “crime” involved in pirate films, per se, except of course, piracy is a crime, and a rather glamorous one at that, movie style. Another small crime of sorts is that this is a pirate film without any boats in it, except stock footage at the beginning and the end, and hardly any water.

   Blame this on small, tight budgets that the production people at Hammer had to work under, but worked wonders, they did. There are basically only four sets: the exterior of the tropical village on an island where a group of 17th century Huguenots have settled, fleeing religious persecution; the interior of their primary meeting place; a small jungle surrounding the compound, complete with one river leading to the sea; and a gravel pit doing double duty as a site for a penal colony.

   And in spite of financial considerations, the movie is beautifully photographed in color, and populated as if with a cast of thousands, although in reality there may have been perhaps no more than 40 or 50 involved.

   Where this island actually is is not explicitly stated, although you (the viewer) are supposed to believe that it is somewhere in the Caribbean and one that has not been discovered by anyone else. Let me get back to river, though, for a minute. Whenever it’s convenient for plot line purposes, the river is filled with hungry, ferocious piranha fish. Piranha fish and quicksand, that’s what I remember of jungle epics when I was a kid. I thought there was going to be quicksand in one scene in this movie, but apparently I was wrong. Too bad. They missed one there.

   On to the story line. If there’s a moral to the story, it’s that groups fleeing religious persecution quickly revert to the tactics of their enemies, and quickly become religious zealots themselves. Jonathon Standing (Kerwin Matthews) is the son of one of the village’s board of selectmen (you might say), but that does him no good when he’s convicted of adultery and sentenced to hard labor at the aforementioned penal colony.

   From which he eventually escapes, only to land in the hands of Captain LaRoche (Christopher Lee) and his men. Here, taken from the audio commentary for the film, is author Jimmy Sangster‘s original description of the man:

   Sangster, whose voice is one of those we hear, admits that he had Lee in mind for the part from the very beginning. Dressed all in black, with a patch over his left eye, Lee is one of those actors who commands the the viewer’s attention film from the moment we very most see him.

   Another moral of the story. Don’t make deals with pirates. They don’t keep their end of the bargain. Never have, never will. I’ve known that ever since I was eight years old. Too bad that Jonathan Standing doesn’t.

   The plot could have about as easily served for a good old-fashioned western melodrama, and I shall refrain from saying very much more about it. (Did Hammer Films ever make westerns? Probably not, but if you were to say yes, how surprised would I be? Not very much at all.)

   But I do want to mention one highlight of the film for me — a blindfolded swordfight to the death between two of the pirates, played by Peter Arne and Oliver Reed (the latter, as intense as usual, seen above). Whether choreographed or ad lib, it’s completely over the top, and it was worth the price of admission to me right then and there. (Surprisingly enough, the commentators stop talking to watch, but they say nothing as to how it came to be done.)

   I’d also like to point out a job well done by Michael Ripper, who plays a henchman named Hench (a nice touch). Ripper usually played bartenders, innkeepers, coachmen and grave robbers in Hammer films. This time it was a much larger part, worthy of his talents, and more — he looks as though he’s enjoying himself immensely.

   But is the movie worthy of your time? I enjoyed it, and if you’ve read this far, you very well may too. Vince Keenan tells me that the second movie on this disk, The Devil-Ship Pirates, also with Christopher Lee, is the better of the two. I won’t dispute that, yet. As soon as I feel like watching another pirate movie, I know exactly which one it will be.