Watch The Crimson Pirate For Free

How sad is this?

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

For years before becoming an actor, Burt Lancaster was a circus acrobat along with his best friend Nick Cravat, (who plays Ojo in the Crimson Pirate). The acrobatics in this film are truly amazing.

Movies were made differently then. The stars, most of whom did not use their own names, were under contract to studios, studios run by the original "mad men" (nothing to do with advertising) and it was all about volume, not quality. The stars were expected to churn out so many "pictures" a year, and if one or more actually turned out to be memorable, that was merely a bonus. Into the mix comes Lancaster, one of the most physical actors ever to work in Tinseltown (former acrobat), a bunch of second-stringers, and voila you have the template which years later Johnny Depp would use so effectively to spoof the genre. Plot? What plot? It's about rip-roaring fun from the first scene to the last, and Lancaster delivers. He really could act, you know, but this film simply requires him to have fun and bring the audience along for the ride. One of the best of its kind. The sad thing was watching Lancaster age in the years to follow. Moreso than others of the era, he hated getting old because his work was so heavily based on his sheer physical presence.

This would have to be one of my favorite films of all times and for many reasons. The Crimson Pirate was filmed on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Napoli in Italy. My parents were both from this island and they remember the cast and crew during the summer of 1951 when it was made. My mum to this day remembered Burt Lancaster sitting outside a bar, drinking a coffee and thinking "Oh he is so handsome". Many locals were given parts as extras. I remember my first visit to Ischia in 1988. In a doorway opposite Castello Aragonese, sat an old man with a wooden leg dressed as a pirate. Who would sit there everyday having his photo taken with tourists as he made a name for himself as "the pirate" from the movie as an extra.Ischia has been used in other Hollywood films, notably "Avanti" starring Jack Lemon and Juiliet Mills, and "The Talented Mr Ripley" starring Jude Law, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Phillip Seymor Hoff.

Before Burt Lancaster got his first Academy Award nomination for From Here to Eternity, the film he would have been most identified with, what could have been his career role, would have been The Crimson Pirate. It's also the film that he probably got to use more of his background as a circus acrobat than in any other.Unlike some of the films of known movie pirates like Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., The Crimson Pirate is set in some pirate never never land in what we think is the 18th century by the style of dress, but we're not really sure. It could be the Caribbean, most likely it is. But I remarked to another reviewer that it looked a whole lot like the Mediterranean. And then I looked and saw that it had in fact been filmed on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples with interiors done in the United Kingdom. I've seen very few actors enjoy themselves as much as Lancaster does playing Captain Vallo. At the same time Lancaster was desperately looking for serious roles so that he would be taken seriously as a thespian. When this was finishing Lancaster was signing up with Columbia for From Here To Eternity.But I'm not sure that Lancaster would have done The Crimson Pirate had it not had a hidden message about tyranny and forbidding freedom of expression which he felt the House Un-American Activities Committee was doing. The original script for The Crimson Pirate was blacklisted writer Waldo Salt, Roland Kibbee did revisions and later got screen credit. Salt himself forbid screen credits as he didn't want Lancaster to run afoul of the blacklist. All this is told in a recent biography of Lancaster.None of the rightwing lugnuts got it however as The Crimson Pirate was buried under layers of comedy and outrageous overacting. Lancaster is in the title role and in some complicated machinations about playing both rebels on some unknown Caribbean? island against some unknown European country authorities off against each other, he falls in love with rebel leader's daughter Eva Bartok. In the supporting cast the best parts are that of James Hayter as an eccentric inventor who's a century ahead of his time in some respects. His gadgets help save the day. The other really meaty supporting role is that for Torin Thatcher as the guy who inspires mutiny among the Crimson Pirate's crew for not hewing to pirate rules. Some people are fundamentalists that way.I can't fathom anyone not loving The Crimson Pirate.