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Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Memorable, crazy movie

best movie i've ever seen.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

This film is a swashbuckling "Captain Blood" style, in which the immortal heartthrob Errol Flynn plays a British officer who infiltrates a pirate den to undermine his coastal defenses and allow an English attack. Flynn is in a comfortable role and provides us with a performance within what we could expect from him. Next to him are Maureen O'Hara and Anthony Quinn, the latter in the role of the villain. Quinn had a relatively contained performance, despite his character being a bully. O'Hara seeks to establish himself in a middle ground between the feminine sensuality and the strength and personality that her character demanded. I don't know to what extent this effort was fruitful, but I believe the actress could have done better. In addition, being a period film and being piracy a strongly masculine activity, her character lacks verisimilitude. Worse than that is just Alice Kelley, in a character very stereotyped and loaded with subliminal sexual allusions. In short: its a film that satisfies swashbuckling connoisseurs but is far from the greatness of other films of this genre.

Flamboyant leading lady Maureen O'Hara, having just completed her favorite film role, in "The Quiet Man", with John Wayne, now got her one chance to costar with another legendary film man of action, albeit during his declining years. I was unaware of this Technicolor Flynn-starring pirate yarn, filmed when he was looking and sounding rather middle-aged, being consumed by his rampant alcoholism. Nonetheless, he put forth a credible performance in this, unique for him, Universal-sponsored film. This is one of a rash of pirate-centered films that Universal sponsored in the early '50s: some straight adventure stories, others farcical spoofs. A number of these are currently available in a collective DVD offering. Of this group of films, this one certainly sports the greatest collection of high profile actors, if not being your personal favorite.Maureen was no stranger to being cast in pirate and other adventure-type films. In contrast to her previous roles in "The Black Swan" and "The Spanish Main" as an aristocratic lady desired, in this film, she is cast as one of the pirate captains, having inherited this position from her deceased father. This role enhances her opportunities to display her trademark fiery tomboyish personality. As in the case of feisty Alexis Smith, Flynn's leading lady in a number of previous films, her flaming red hair and green-grey eyes were made for Technicolor, sometimes denied her in her early career. This was one of a rash of films released in the early '50s that featured feisty women of a bygone era in roles traditionally reserved for men only. This includes: "Anne Get Your Gun", "Calamity Jane", "Montana Belle" "Comanche Territory", and "The Redhead from Wyoming" the last two again featuring Maureen. Charismatic Anthony Quinn was the third lead, as another pirate captain. He played a rather similar role in the previous "The Black Swan", with Maureen again the leading lady. As usual, he ends up the odd man out in a romantic triangle. Although physically he clearly belies his partial Mexican heritage, Quinn was cast as a wide variety of exotics during his career, often villainous, as exotics tended to be. Here, he curiously takes on the namesake of the otherwise forgotten historical Dutch-Brazilian Caribbean pirate Roc Brasiliano. Just why the screenwriters decided to so anoint his character is beyond me. The brutal Brasiliano never had anything to do with Madagascar nor Indian Ocean piracy, which are the centerpiece of this film. Furthermore, Quinn's character is apparently Italian, or perhaps French.Instead of the single damsel in distress Flynn previously fought and romanced with in his pirate films,here he has two beautiful women characterized as extreme opposites in the spectrum of female personalities, competing for his romantic attentions. Besides the sharp, gutsy, outspoken Maureen, he happens upon the demure, extremely sheltered,unbelievably stupid, Princess Patma, daughter of the Indian Grand Mogul. She happens to be a passenger on a ship that Brasiliano attacks, rescued from the burning ship by Flynn, Brasiliano's crew member. Man-starved throughout her life, this gorgeous creature(played by Alice Kelley) immediately takes a romantic fancy to Flynn, who responds standoffishly after he learns who she is. Presumably, he doesn't want to run afoul of the Grand Mogul, who no doubt has his own marriage plans for his daughter. What was the Princess doing on this ship? A favorite target of Indian Ocean pirates was shiploads of Indian Muslims, going to fulfill their lifetime quest to visit the holy city of Mecca. Probably, this was her case, as suggested by Flynn's character.When the Princess is put up for sale as a slave, Maureen outbids Flynn, assuming he wants her as a concubine, whereas Flynn actually wants to protect her. He hopes to ultimately get her aboard a British warship scheduled to arrive. Unfortunately, instead, she falls into the hands of Brasiliano, who uses her as a 'shield' to discourage the British warship from firing on his ship, as he tries to make a getaway, with Maureen aboard, to Italy. Brasiliano sent the Princess's chaperone to the warship to tell he has the Princess. Flynn saves the day by sneaking aboard the ship and dueling with Brasiliano to the death, abetted by rapier-wielding Maureen, after Brasiliano tried to rape her.Maureen keeps going back and forth in her allegiance between Flynn and Brasiliano, when they are at odds. Although attracted by Flynn's charm and seeming gentlemanly persona, she is scorned by his inexplicable refusal to make love to her at her beckoning, at one point, and is suspicious of his relationship with the Princess, among possible others. As she is leaving, having been frustrated, she suggests that another woman will probably soon show up. Flynn quips "no, not another woman, 10 of them!" Flynn plays an undercover agent, intent on infiltrating the Madagascar pirate rings, and disabling the numerous cannons protecting their main base at Diego-Suarez. He is successful at this, but seemingly outmaneuvered by Brasiliano's use of the Princess as a shield. My favorite film role for Maureen, with great chemistry with Flynn. Quinn also great. Superb Technicolor cinematography. Unfortunately, Flynn is really trying to play his irresistible self 5-15 years earlier, with only modest success.

By 1945, and after a string of solid WWII propaganda pieces, Errol Flynn’s hold over U.S. box office had started to decline so, in spite of the increased burden of waning looks, he embarked on a series of films pertaining to that genre which had earlier made his name: the swashbuckler. The first of these was a good one actually – ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN (1948) – but it also proved to be his last big-budget Hollywood starring vehicle. The rest of his sword-wielding days were spent wandering all over Europe: in England for KIM (1950), THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE (1953) and THE DARK AVENGER (1955), in France for ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN FABIAN (1951) and Italy for the aborted THE STORY OF WILLIAM TELL (1953) and the little-seen CROSSED SWORDS (1954). However, Hollywood did beckon him one last time to his old seafaring ways – albeit for a modestly-budgeted Universal picture rather than a Warner Brothers ‘A’ production to which he had been accustomed when at his peak… Still, the glorious Technicolor cinematography leaps off the screen here and, while an older and flabbier Flynn may look like the pale shadow of his former self, his red-headed leading lady Maureen O’Hara has a field day as a tomboyish buccaneer leader who deep down craves romance and wants to be treated like a lady. Anthony Quinn was still a few years away from his larger-than-life starring vehicles, so here he is typically seen as the baddie – the pirate captain Roc Brasiliano, a role he attacks with gusto. Like THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH (1954) – a viewing of which preceded this one – AGAINST ALL FLAGS takes me back to my cherished childhood days of constant TV viewing when vintage Hollywood movies were the order of the day on both the local and neighboring Italian channels.For all I know, this might well have been the very first pirate movie I’ve ever seen and I cringe at the thought of today’s generation of youngsters supposedly believing that the grossly overblown PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN trilogy is what buccaneering is all about! As I said earlier, AGAINST ALL FLAGS might not be the finest pirate yarn ever brought to the screen but it’s a solid example of this prolific genre all the same. Nowadays, the amorous persistence of the child-like Indian princess (Alice Kelley) towards her pirate captor Flynn may strike one as being awfully silly but the rest of it – despite clearly not scaling the heights of THE SEA HAWK (1940) and THE BLACK SWAN (1942), to mention the finest seafaring ventures of its respective stars – is briskly paced and reasonably engaging. Incidentally, the film would later go on to be remade as THE KING’S PIRATE (1967) with Doug McClure! For what it’s worth, the unprecedented box office success of that unappetizing modern franchise is most probably what induced reluctant movie studios to dust off their catalogue swashbuckling titles and release them on DVD and, as a matter of fact, AGAINST ALL FLAGS itself was the one gem in a poorly-thought out “Pirates Of The Golden Age Movie Collection” set from Universal which also consisted of obscure dross like BUCCANEER’S GIRL (1950; with Yvonne De Carlo), DOULE CROSSBONES (1951; with Donald O’Connor) and YANKEE BUCCANEER (1952; with Jeff Chandler)! Value for money, perhaps but, so far, I have only acquired the Errol Flynn flick from other sources; even so, if the mood strikes me in future, I might wish to lay my hands on similar marine adventures like Edward Dmytyk’s MUTINY (1952), the afore-mentioned YANKEE BUCCANEER and PIRATES OF TORTUGA (1961).

I just finished a mini-marathon of Errol Flynn pirate movies: Captain Blood (1935), The Sea Hawk (1940), and Against All Flags (1952). Strangely, I'd never heard of AAF, though I knew most of Flynn's other films. It was interesting to see Flynn's face change so dramatically over the years, and listen to his accent become more American. I've never heard anyone mention this before, but I find that in his 40s, Errol Flynn looked a great deal like John Wayne. In fact, I had to blink more than once during AAF to remind myself that this was *not* John Wayne! I enjoyed this film, mainly thanks to the three leads, as others have said. I had read a previous review about how sexist this movie is, so I was prepared for the worst, but I didn't find it *that* bad (comparatively speaking), except for the stupid ending. The insistence of Maureen O'Hara's character that she will only kiss a man when she feels like it, instead of the other way around, her intelligence, confidence, honesty and her kindness to her "rival" all seem pretty feminist to me. On the other hand, apparently it's quite all right to sell the Indian princess's nine companions into marriage, as long as the princess herself is saved!Overall, though, I found this film more racist than sexist. The villain is once again the olive-skinned Hispanic (Anthony Quinn), and the "Indian" princess in her harem outfit (played by a white actress, naturally) is so stupid she shouldn't be allowed to cross a street by herself!I wasn't that thrilled by the sword-fighting, but that might be due to an overdose after watching three movies' worth! I don't know whether it was the soundtrack, but Errol Flynn spoke so softly throughout this film that often I had trouble understanding what he said. One little question: if you'd just stabbed someone, wouldn't the owner expect to see a little blood on his knife when you returned it to him? The technicolor shows to good advantage, and I'd like to know where they filmed the outdoor scenes! All in all, an enjoyable pirate movie for an evening's entertainment.