Other than Long John Silver, Johnny Depp, and Willie Stargell, Robert Surcouf is one of our greatest and favorite pirates who ever sailed the seven seas or played left field. As befitting a man of such stature that I hadn’t heard of him until this movie, The Sea Pirate is not exactly the high profile vehicle these other pirates enjoyed (Treasure Island, Pirates of the Caribbean, the 1979 World Series), but that doesn’t mean his story isn’t worthy of an obscure mid 1960s Italian swashbuckler! It means that he’s deserving of two such films! But it also means that the second film, Il grande colpo di Surcouf has no known English release. Continue reading “The Sea Pirate (1966)”
Category: Livio Lorenzon
The Black Archer (1959)
Who was that masked man? Well, it sure as hell wasn’t the Black Archer! Because apparently that dude doesn’t even exist! At no time in Piero Pierotti’s The Black Archer did a costumed vigilante who swiped William Tell’s gimmick ever make an appearance!
Not to worry though because Pierotti didn’t go on to direct such memorably forgotten Italian adventure films as Giant of the Evil Island by hosing its audience out of what was promised in the title despite that there wasn’t any giant in Giant of the Evil Island. So it is that instead of The Black Archer, we get… The Avenging Arrow! Continue reading “The Black Archer (1959)”
Sword in the Shadows (1961)
I didn’t need any of the gypsy queen’s gift of prophecy to know that when her clan swiped a bunch of horses that belonged to the evil della Rocca family that there would be a level of hell to pay that not even the evil eye of the bosomy she-tiger gypsy hussy who may or may not be a traitor could counter!
That these della Rocca roaches were also the same family that cold-bloodedly wiped out the ruling Altavila family fifteen years before and that the dude who actually did the horse thieving was Fabrizio, the only surviving member of the Altavilla family, but who doesn’t know his true identity, only served to amp up the tension at the castle were so many people suffered from unrequited love when they weren’t out relieving that tension by burning down gypsy encampments!
I guess I was supposed to be sympathetic to the gypsies and Fabrizio. After all, they weren’t out murdering families, including little kids, but they did stupidly stir up a hornet’s nest when they went and stole those horses. Continue reading “Sword in the Shadows (1961)”
Son of the Red Corsair (1959)
If I wanted to see a real butch he-man like Lex Barker dressed in his satiny finest and wearing a powdered wig, I would go to that premium members only web site that’s discreetly billed to my credit card at $29.98 month!
But it wasn’t as if the transgendered appearance of one our great Tarzans was the only thing marring my enjoyment of what should have been an easy sell to someone as indiscriminate as me when it comes to Italian adventure films. There was the nasal and simpering voice used to dub Lex’s no doubt brawny real life voice, the fact that Lex fought sword fights while undercover with a blade that had his real name on it, and of course the pansified dance scene Lex and the audience were forced to endure during one of the movie’s numerous bouts of action anorexia. Continue reading “Son of the Red Corsair (1959)”