Silent movies - The Black Pirate

A little over three months ago, I started my silent movie adventure with Douglas Fairbanks's "The Thief of Bagdad". Nizzy Noodle! Who would have thought I'd actually get that far and haven't tired of it one bit yet?
I think three months have been enough for me to allow myself to come back to another Fairbanks adventure. This time we dive into the world of pirates, arrrr (sorry, but I think I have a legal obligation to say that at least once in a post about pirates).
The Black Pirate from 1926 has not been the first pirate film by far, but I think it's safe to say that it has definitely set standards and inspiration for following films because it had everything you could pack into a swashbuckler.

Public domain via
Wikimedia Commons

Let's get to the plot first (with spoilers as usual).

The film starts with pirates mercilessly looting a captured ship and blowing her up with the travellers and crew on board.
Only two men, father and son, get washed up on an island. The father dies and the son takes his ring and vows to revenge him.
The pirates too come to the island to bury part of the treasure, and the pirate leaders get ready to kill the others to keep the secret.

That's when the son appears asking to join them. To prove himself, he fights the pirate captain and kills him. When the pirate lieutenant says there is more to being a pirate than swordplay, he claims he will be capturing the next ship single-handedly - and he does.

To prevent the passengers and crew getting killed, he suggests holding the ship for ransom. When a lady and her maid are also discovered on the ship and the lady is claimed by the pirate lieutenant, "The Black Pirate" says they will be holding the "princess" as hostage for ransom as well, but she has to be unharmed, not exactly what the lieutenant had in mind as you can tell by his look from the background.

Actually, our hero has fallen in love with at her at first sight and intends to bring her ashore which he also lets the captain of the captured ship know. He also tells him also to send "my best soldiers" and gives him his father's ring. I mean, we have suspected from the start that he's no ordinary guy, right?

The pirate lieutenant, however, has ordered one of his crew to go on the ship and blow her up, so she can't return, therefore "The Black Pirate" won't be made captain, and he'll get the lady for himself.
When the ship doesn't return with the ransom, "The Black Pirate" is forced to walk the plank, but with help of the lady and MacTavish, one of the pirates who has become loyal to him, he survives and goes ashore to get help.

He returns just in time before the lady meets a terrible fate, and his troops overpower the pirates.
The Governor reveals him to be Duke Arnoldo in reality, and he asks the lady, who is in fact a princess, for her hand in marriage.

It is said that Mary Pickford was jealous and that it's her in this kissing scene.
There is archival footage of her in the costume, so it's well possible it's true.
Please also note that "The Black Pirate" had changed from his wide pants
(see first picture) into shorts as soon as he joined the pirates.

First of all, let me say I have never been a big fan of pirate movies. I don't like fight scenes with a lot of people and having all of them on a ship plus cannons, a lot of swords, ropes, and sails doesn't make it any better.

In "The Black Pirate", however, there aren't loads of mass fight scenes. We have one big one at the end although that didn't impress me as much as the "uniforms" of the troops? Not sure that's the right word.
Once again I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

Fairbanks had been wanting to make a pirate film for a while, but he said he "could not imagine piracy without color".
Indeed, this was the first major feature film to be shot completely in Technicolor where before there had only been sequences. If you hear that, you probably think rich and colorful, but at the time they only had "two-strip" Technicolor which captured just the reds and the greens.
As you can imagine, the process wasn't cheap and called for someone who didn't just like to try out new things, but also had the money to do that.

Fairbanks didn't want the novelty of color to distract the audience from the plot itself, though. So they settled for a muted color palette and all items would be dyed to show the proper color on screen if necessary. Lighting affected color as well and there was a dual set of costumes for artificial and (mostly) natural light.
You may not get the feeling of a real color film off it, but actually I thought it works well with the atmosphere.

The plot was quite straightforward. I said it had everything, but this time there were no huge effects or sets, also due to the costs of Technicolor, it was all in the story.
You had the sword fights, the damsel in distress, betrayal and intrigue, loyalty, humor, and of course the acrobatic stunts Fairbanks was known for.
The biggest stunt which has been replicated more than once was of course The Black Pirate riding down the sail by plunging in his knife into it and slicing it during the ride. There have been different theories on how this stunt was made (see the sources), but who needs to know? It's just amazing to see him do it, we don't have to analyze everything.

The plot was perfect for the length and I was neither bored nor did I get overwhelmed by fight scenes.
The chemistry between The Black Pirate, his loyal companion MacTavish (who also added a bit of comic relief), and the evil pirate lieutenant worked really well.
I can't necessarily say the same for the romance, but that didn't surprise me. The typical damsel in distress is just that - distressed. She doesn't get to do much more than feel faint or desperate until she gets to be happily in love in the end.
At least our princess quite cleverly managed to slip The Black Pirate a knife when he was about to walk the plank with his hands tied up.
So yes, I enjoyed myself much more than I had expected from a pirate movie and I would really recommend watching it.


Sources:

1. Fritzi Kramer: The Black Pirate (1926) - A Silent Film Review. On: Movies Silently, July 16, 2017
2. Jeffrey Vance: The Black Pirate - Essay. On: San Francisco Silent Film Festival (A Day of Silents 2015)
3. The Black Pirate (1926). On: The Chasbah, February 3, 2024
4. Carl Bennett: The Black Pirate (1926). On: Silent Era
5. Tracey Goessel: The Black Pirate. On: Library of Congress, National Film Preservation Board