I saw The Black Pirate during the first season(?) of Silents Please, before the Ernie Kovacs hosted episodes. Of course, it was a truncated 20 or so black and white minutes of a 90 minute color film. Still, the two scenes that stuck in my mind were the 'sword ride down the sail', and the underwater swimming sequence. I saw this episode once, and at 9 or 10 years old, didn't pay much attention to the actors. Once after that, I asked my father if that was the, 'pirate from the silent movie', while we were watching something with Gilbert Roland. My father had no idea what I was talking about. Now, sometime in the 1990s, I caught a cable documentary about silent films, (there are ****loads of docs about them), and one featured a short color sequence of The Black Pirate. OMG, I saw that 40 years ago ! Now I knew the flick, the star, the format. A quick Google and I ordered a Kino video, (pre DVD), of The Black Pirate. Everything I remembered was there, and, a LOT more. Like 70 minutes more, and, in COLOR. I don't know how big a hit this was, but, it should have been the Titanic of its day. A fast moving story, lots of action, sex(sort of), violence, revenge, and COLOR ! Also, you only had to sit still for 90 minutes instead of 4 hours. Anyway, Doug shows again why he was the King of Hollywood. Great stunts, good looking, able to do ANYTHING. BTW, the additional features on the video/DVD show you how he was able to do anything. If you haven't seen it, this 'footnote' to the history of 'silent, color film', is a must see/have.
Review of The Black Pirate
