Le corsaire noir

No pun intended - Terence Hill and Bud Spencer ... two people that shaped my childhood. Even though they had done movies together way before I was born. But I liked watching their movies - dubbed in German, but they had a great industry back then. Probably still have - for the bigger productions.

This one I probably never saw before. This is not like any other movie they did that I really liked. Their relationship is different in this one, the focus is on other characters .. and you have boats and pirates and sword fighting and other stuff like that. While I reckon it is nice to try something different, maybe this is why it just doesn't feel like ... home (well you know what I mean) ... anyway, nice movie overall but nothing special ... if you are a fan of those two actors you won't mind flaws or other things anyway ...

One hesitates to pass judgment on a movie which, in the English-language videotape, has obviously gone through a lot of clumsy re-editing and re-dubbing. Still, it's all we have to judge it by and so the truth must be told: this movie makes virtually no sense at all. The plot has something to do with a shipment of gold which the Viceroy at Guayaquil wants to send back to Spain. A loose confederation of pirate captains has other ideas, as does the Viceroy's beautiful and ambitious wife. Any attempt to clarify the plot beyond these elements will be met with frustration.

That said, the movie retains an amiable quality, is never out and out dull, and has an attractive cast. It's best viewed as an "In-Flight" feature -- one of those things you don't expect much of and which you halfway watch out of the corner of your eye while you're doing something else.

The highlight, (such as it is), may come when Edmund Purdom walks into a room and finds a shirtless Terence Hill tied to a wall, several bloody whip marks on his back. One can't help recalling at this moment that Purdom himself felt the sting of a whip back in MGM's 1954 spectacle, "The Prodigal"

There's the makings of something here: a pirate comedy or a swashbuckling drama, but, ultimately it's neither one or the other enough to make it a good movie, which is rather a shame. Had it actually been a "Trinity Boys Do Pirating" sort of movie, it would have worked. It such a case, it needn't have had a compelling plot: just let Terence Hill and Bud Spencer humorously beat up other pirates and corrupt sailors while having their own dumb misfortunes and bad luck. The movie already had the two comedians and plenty of other very capable actors and actresses, including the beautiful Silvia Monti, Monica Randall, and Diana Lorys.

Alas... Bud Spencer is barely even in this movie and Terence Hill ("Blackie the Pirate") is rarely funny cast as a more traditional leading man type. In fact, the sort of stuff you expect of a "Trinity" movie, Bud's impossible strength and toughness, Terence's agile and offbeat fighting style are farmed out more to the supporting actors, which is actually one of the better parts of the film: Blackie's crew al seem to have their own special talents: one, for example, has excellent aim with a canon or pistols, other is very strong, etc. A crew of pirates, each with their own specialties but only in certain situations starts to almost write itself.

Well... whatever. It's not that movie. Watch it if you'll watch anything By Hill or Spencer or watch it if you'll watch any kind of pirate movie, just don't watch it if you're expecting Terence and Bud to be doing a buddy-buddy pirate comedy.

Now don't get me wrong, I have always been an avid fan of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, but this is a film that does not fit their talents. What made the two so popular was their chemistry on screen, with either playing the idiot at times but it works. That is not the case here, which is a great pity, this film could have been so much more, so what was wrong? Palli lost his way, he could not make his mind up whether this film was going to be a comedy or a drama, unfortunately because of this the film suffers. I have seen Hill play austere parts before, but always there are moments that have shown his humanity and his humour. This movie lacks this, in fact i felt uncomfortable with the character, who seemed to show no appreciation for his crew or the risks they ran for him and even the 20 second speech at the end of the film did little to change that. Bud Spencer, like Terence Hill is an accomplished comedy actor and I firmly believe that he was not comfortable playing this role. His lines could have just as easily been read from a newspaper and his interaction with Hill during negotiations were lacklustre and dull. The reason I have given this film 5 is that it did have some saving graces, mainly the characters that were the crew. Each had special skills, which did interest me and of course George martin who saved the movie from being a complete dirge. Had Hill's character been more like the swashbuckling Errol Flynn type and had there been more interaction between Hill and Spencer, this could have been a great movie.

BLACKIE THE PIRATE is a comic costume swashbuckler designed to cash in on the new-found success of star Terence Hill, but it's not quite on par with the comic westerns that made his name. Instead this is a swashbuckling pirate movie, one that's saddled with a complicated plot involving a number of rival pirates and the inevitable hunt for gold.

Sadly this is rather a dull affair, with the humour limited and the action only so-so. I always found Hill rather a wooden lead, especially when the material isn't great, and such is the case here; he displays little of the charisma of even the peplum actors a decade previously. Even worse, his usual comedy partner Bud Spencer is given the limited role of an antagonist, the kind of part that anybody could have played, limiting the amount of shenanigans the pair can have together.

Much of the fun comes from spotting the names in the cast, such as Alan Collins who plays yet another rival pirate. Edmund Purdom is given a little screen time to chew the scenery as always, while genre favourites like George Martin (who also wrote the lacklustre screenplay) and Sal Borghese are also cast as other naval fellows. Sadly the scripting in BLACKIE THE PIRATE is below par, the action fails to ignite the screen, and the humour just isn't there. This is a juvenile, undemanding type of film.