edwagreen
Maureen O'Hara is hardly the Spitfire character she portrays in this 1952 film. Although, in the dueling scenes, she appears just as good if not better than co-star Errol Flynn.Flynn, as a member of the royal navy, goes undercover to infiltrate a pirate's group. There he meets a cantankerous Anthony Quinn with that deep voice of his.For a film supposedly about pirates, there is very little adventure and at 1:23 minutes, not that much may be told here.Mildred Natwick has the part of a lady in waiting to an Indian princess that would have been much more suited for Una O'Connor.
clivey6
Latter day Errol Flynn pirate adventure, filmed in sumptuous colour and with Anthony Quinn and Maureen O'Hara providing fine support as the villainy and love interest respectively (of course!). O'Hara was in the not dissimilar Black Swan but I much prefer her in this, as a feisty pirate captain called Spitfire. She wears Lincoln green a lot, perhaps as a nod to Flynn's Robin Hood many years earlier.Sadly, I found Flynn to be the weakest link here. People say he's aged a lot in this, but no more than many of us do in over a decade, certainly no more than Bond stars Connery and Moore did in the same amount of time. I don't mind the 19th-hole, fetch-me-a-double-whiskey-and-Xerox-it pallour, rather that Flynn seems to be a man with the fight completely knocked out of him. There's none of the animus or spirit of his earlier performances - and Flynn without spirit is like Connery without his dangerous edge - or, as Connery appeared in Never Say Never Again. In fact, this vehicle has the feel of a belated comeback picture like NSNA or Indy and the Crystal Skulls, there's the sense that something is not quite right with the leading man. There's a defeated, shifty look in Flynn's eyes that's very uncharismatic.It doesn't help that the script seems written for Flynn in his younger glory years, a lady killer who can turn Spitfire's head without preamble. It's a scene that anticipates Connery and Karin Dor in YOLT, but at least Connery had a bit more of the youthful, indolent way about him still then.I didn't care either for the plot, a Donnie Brasco-type thing where Flynn is a naval officer posing as a deserter to infiltrate the pirate colony, but that's just my taste. Like Lazenby in OHMSS going undercover as Sir Hilary Bray, it works against the leading man's natural brio and bravado. It would have helped to show some dastardly, nasty pirate behaviour early on to justify his undercover actions, because often Flynn plays the outraged insubordinate rather than an establishment figure. Still, the look of the film carried me through and I wish Captain Blood had been filmed in that sort of colour.
Ben Burgraff (cariart)
AGAINST ALL FLAGS, Universal's 'take' on the WB swashbucklers of the previous decade, utilized the services of the quintessential Warner buccaneer, himself, Errol Flynn, in the lead. While he was no longer the devil-may-care young matinee idol he'd once been, the actor, finishing up his WB contract, negotiated a 'percentage of the gross' deal to make the film, and with a potential big payday as incentive, Flynn would show more energy and enthusiasm than in THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE (which would be released a year later, and would be his last WB swashbuckler).As Brian Hawke, a British naval officer 'undercover' to destroy the batteries of a pirate island stronghold, Flynn looks far older and more jaded than in his halcyon days (when his commander refers to him as 'young', you can almost see both actors wince), but his rakish smile is still present, and his dialog is ripe with the sexual innuendo audiences had come to expect from a Flynn film (to female pirate Maureen O'Hara, he says, with tongue in cheek, "I'd looked forward to serving under you, ma'am"...). Posing as disgraced and discharged, his obvious refinement draws the suspicion of ruthless pirate captain Anthony Quinn, but stirs the long-suppressed sexual yearnings in O'Hara, whose father had built the artillery emplacements. Discovering that the plans are located in O'Hara's bedchamber, Flynn goes to work on her, combining his mission with his infamous off-screen reputation for seduction, in a funny scene that both actors play to the hilt.Placed under Quinn's command, Flynn participates in the capture of a galleon, then discovers that the 'cargo' is a virginal Indian princess (Alice Kelley), who'd never been close to a man before, other than her father. Having Errol Flynn as a 'first' provides another point of humor, as, after he gives her a platonic kiss, she nearly swoons, and begins incessantly begging, "AGAIN!" (A chant O'Hara would take up, as the film's final line).There is the 'mandatory' discovery of Flynn's true identity, O'Hara's betrayal to rescue him, and O'Hara and Kelly both held as hostage aboard Quinn's ship, leading up, of course, to a 'by-the-numbers' final swordfight between Flynn and Quinn. Unfortunately, in filming the final duel, Flynn fell, breaking his leg, and the production was halted until the aging actor could heal (Universal, ever conscious of budget, filmed YANKEE BUCCANEER, with Jeff Chandler, on the Flynn sets, as he recuperated).
The shooting was, overall, a pleasant experience for Flynn, at a time when the WB had relegated him to 'B' pictures, and he advertised AGAINST ALL FLAGS in theatrical trailers as one of his favorite films. While it wasn't the hit he had hoped for, it did do well enough that the WB would 'green light' THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE, to be made in England. (Universal would remake AGAINST ALL FLAGS, 15 years later, as THE KING'S PIRATE, with Doug McClure in Flynn's role.)Financial difficulties would soon force Errol Flynn to leave the United States, and the pirate yarn would be his last film shot in America for five years.A new stage of his rollercoaster career was about to begin...
Marcio F Cuzziol
Sounds like something you can't miss: a pirate movie starring Errol Flynn, Maureen O'Hara and Anthony Quinn... Well, not really. You can miss it, no problem at all. Flynn plays a British Navy officer who could be living on the edge since he is spying a pirate community in Madagascar. But he looks like someone who is having a good time, his heart divided between pirate O'Hara and a foolish Indian princess. Action sequences are unconvincing, even fencing is weak. Only the final duel between Flynn and Quinn holds some interest. The same story was remade as "The King's Pirate" in 1967, a B-movie less pretentious but funnier than the original.
