After his old friend Henry Morgan (Laird Cregar) is made governor of Jamaica, former pirate Jamie (Tyrone Power) bristles at the transition to respectability.
When another pirate, Billy Leech (George Sanders), breaks Morgan's truce, Jamie is ordered to hunt his old comrade down.
These orders coincide with news that a woman Jamie is infatuated with - Lady Margaret (Maureen O'Hara) - is heading back to England to be married.
Unhappy with this turn of events, Jamie kidnaps the woman and goes on his mission - not a good idea...
I watched The Black Swan after watching a clutch of Errol Flynn movies. I had heard it highlighted as one of the best swashbucklers, and after Mark of Zorro, I was eager to see more of star Tyrone Power.
I spent forever looking for a copy and then found a good quality version on YouTube.
Appropriate for a pirate movie, I guess.
Tyrone Power is Errol Flynn's Peter Blood in reverse - starting as a lawless pirate, he finds himself deputised and beached after a royal pardon.
In the first part of the film, he is almost portrayed as a villain - bare chested; he tries to have his way with the governor’s daughter.
One of the running themes I noted in the other swashbucklers I watched was their evocation of class.
As with the other swashbucklers of this period, The Black Swan also aligns the characters along class lines:
While our heroes live according to their own code, the film’s villain, and Margaret's betrothed, Ingram (Edward Ashley) is among the landed gentry. He feeds info to Captain Leach, profiting from the booty while undermining the young governorship of Morgan - repeated references to keeping up appearances.
The real enemy in this film is not piracy, but hypocrisy.
What makes this film unique is how much emphasis it places on strategy and politicking compared with other swashbucklers.
Our hero finds himself on the back foot or at a disadvantage. When he realises he has been outmanoeuvred by the film’s villain, he has to improvise and make the villains think he has turned coat.
The film turns into more of a suspense drama, with Jamie and Margaret are forced to work together in order to avoid being killed.
The colour photography cannot be denied - the shot of the bright blue ship’s decking draped with the bodies of its crew; Jamie preparing to dive into the water with a setting sun behind him.
Tyrone Power’s Jamie is lawless but more calculating than Flynn.
While Flynn tends to keep into action, and improvise his way out of trouble, in the films I have seen so far, Power’s persona is more thoughtful and cunning. He tends to put on a brash front, but he is more cunning than recklessly brave.
Of the cast, Laird Cregar is the standout - as Morgan, a pirate-turned-gentleman who bristles at his new responsibilities, he brings an energy and humour that the rest of the film needs.
There is so much to like about The Black Swan. Even with the plot, which feels a shade over-complicated, the film moves at a decent clip.
The worst aspect of the film is Jamie's relationship with Margaret - he spends most of the film harassing her, and then kidnaps her. It is only after they are kidnapped, and forced to work together, that she begins to warm to him.
In such a sumptuous production, this ugly level of misogyny adds a darker subtext to our lawless hero's personal code.
Women get short shrift in all the swashbucklers I have watched. It is not a unique feature of the film, but The Black Swan is probably the most overt example of this marginalisation.
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