The Black Swan (1942)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Henry King

Writers:

Ben Hecht (screenplay) and
Seton I. Miller (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

4 December 1942 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Family | History

Tagline:

Seas Ablaze...with black villainy, with fiery romance, with breathless deeds of daring...in the roaring era of Love, Gold and Adventure!

Plot:

When notorious pirate Henry Morgan is made governor of Jamaica, he enlists the help of some of his former...

Plot Keywords:

Governor | Pirate | Henry Morgan | Jamaica | English

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 2 nominations

Cast

Tyrone Power	...	Jamie Waring
Maureen O'Hara	...	Lady Margaret Denby
Laird Cregar	...	Capt. Sir Henry Morgan
Thomas Mitchell	...	Tom 'Tommie' Blue
George Sanders	...	Capt. Billy Leech
Anthony Quinn	...	Wogan - Leech's First Mate
George Zucco	...	Lord Denby

Also Known As:

Rafael Sabatini's The Black Swan (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

87 min (copyright time) | USA:85 min (current existing footage) | Portugal:85 min (re-release) (censored version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #8421)

Filming Locations:

Cuba

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

To help out the war effort, the actors tried hard to keep the number of takes low so as to conserve film. Roughly thirty of the scenes were done in one take.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Although the story is supposed to take place in the 17th century, Lady Margaret has a medallion with a colour photo inside. You can clearly see it's a photo when Jamie first finds the medallion and then opens it. Photography was not invented until the 19th century.

Quotes:

[Don Miguel's interrogation of Jamie Waring is interrupted by the sound of cannon fire]
Don Miguel: What is that?
Jamie: The devil looking after his own!

Movie Connections:

Featured in 20 Dates (1998)

Soundtrack:

Heave Ho

Great Movie!!!

I first saw this movie when I was 11 or 12 years old. Since then I've seen about nine or ten times. So what if the good guy is a pirate? A real proud one? Tyrone Power give one of his best performances, George Sanders is pure evil, Maureen O'Hara is more than just the pretty damsel-about-to-be-in-constant-distress and Laird Cregar gives life to a good portrait of Henry Morgan. And the other actors gives good performances as well. Plus the story is good (I never read Sabatini's book, shame on me), a fine example of the Pirate Movie (like Douglas Fairbanks's The Black Corsair). All in all the kind of movie that you can see many and many times.