Black Swan (1942)

Tyrone Power-The Perfect Pirate

I remember as a child watching all the great old pirate movies with my Dad on Friday nights. Tyrone Power was always one of our favorites and The Black Swan is one movie that stood out in memory for me. It is a beautifully filmed and vastly entertaining film and one I just had to add to my "good ole days" section of my DVD library. If you love pirates-don't pass up on this treasure. November 15, 2008

The Black Swan

The Black Swan is a fast paced swashbuckler that will keep you entertained as far as the action is concerned. It's the between moments that cause the film not to reach greater heights. The Black Swan is directed by Henry King who was a dependable director, at times elevating his films over the ordinary. The Black Swan suffers because of its pacing, it's too fast & most of the characters don't develop sufficiently.

Capt. Jamie Waring (Tyrone Power) is a pirate & has been captured by the English.The English have taken an interest in stopping the pirates because they have signed a peace treaty with the Spanish. Waring is on the rack about to suffer his doom. His torturer is the Governor of Jamaica, Lord Denby (George Zucco). Waring is rescued by his friend, Tommy Blue (Thomas Mitchell).

Denby is replaced as Governor with another pirate, Henry Morgan (Laird Cregar). The English have decided the best way to stop the pirates is to put a pirate on their trail. Morgan convinces most of the pirates to go legitimate. Capt. Leech (George Sanders) is the exception who decides to continue his piracy.

Along the way Waring encounters Denby's daughter, Margaret (Maureen O'Hara). Waring falls in love with Margaret but the feeling isn't mutual. She's betrothed to Roger Ingram (Edward Ashley) who, on the surface, appears to be a better man than Waring. But Ingram is the man behind the scenes who has struck a deal with Leech informing him of where the treasure ships will be. This causes Morgan's governorship to be in jeopardy because the pirates are succeeding while his men aren't.

Waring ends up kidnapping Margaret & taking her away on his ship. This angers Morgan. Furthermore, it appears that Waring has switched sides joining up with Leech.

The Black Swan is a fun movie that moves along crisply. The problem is that the characters are mostly cardboard. Morgan is all bluster speaking loudly most of the time. Anthony Quinn (Wogan) is totally wasted in a small role. Power is in fine form, he & Leech have a great duel though some of it is sped up. Sanders is fine as Leech. Maureen O'Hara is basically the obligatory female lead. O'Hara isn't the problem though, it's the character. She can't stand Waring, she agrees to help save their hides & then abruptly falls in love with him.

"I like to sip the wine before I buy it." is said by Waring & Margaret; Waring when he kidnaps her & by Margaret when she falls in love with him at the end.

The picture quality is great with vivid colors. It's shown in the full screen ratio (1.33:1). There are four audio tracks: English Mono, English Stereo, French Mono & Spanish Mono. There's also an audio commentary track with Maureen O'Hara & Rudy Behlmer. Subtitles are in English & Spanish. October 5, 2008

The Black Swan

The restoration of the '90s version is better than the restoration just made of this movie. The colors are now too phoney looking....too much color saturation September 18, 2008

Classic Movie

I was so happy to receive this video and share it with my uncle of 90 years. We both love the old classics and I was so suprised to see this was one Tyrone Power movie he hadn't seen! Seemed to me he's see them all! LOL So many movies are hard to find and I want to thank Amazon.com for helping to find these older movies. You've made both of us very happy and your service is the best!! Keep up the good work! THANKS!! June 5, 2008

Great movie but they messed with the technicolor

I absolutely love this movie. I am a huge fan of old hollywood action packed extravagant movies. Great Pirate yarn, set in the caribbean, Captain Henry Morgan has become Governor in order to pursuade the other pirates to settle down now that England is no longer at war. Tyrone Powers, Maureen O'Hara, and George Saunders (always great), not to mention several other great actors in this movie. I would say this movie is great quality and while it is, its been restored, so it should be, but the restoration has striped some of the lovely technicolor away, the colors that I enjoyed watching as a kid are gone, they do have segment that shows you what the movie looked like before they changed it, they took out a lot of the red hues, so Maureen O'Hara's hair is not red, Tyrone (often shirtless) is pale instead of tanish, and the sun sets are not their brillant color, so you might have to adjust your TV color to watch, I have to do that on several movies that have been restored for DVD. It is still worth the purchase its a great movie. May 14, 2008

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