A Fun List of Pirate
Movie Favorites
By Guest Columnist Elise Schwartz
Real-world
pirates were criminals. They were dark rulers of the high seas. They
plundered,
pillaged, smuggled, and killed anyone who got in their way. Hollywood
pirates,
though, are more of the “tall, dark, and handsome” sort. They may
plunder and
smuggle, but only to get the girl and smite those girls’ greedy suitors.
So the Treasure Was Divided by
Howard Pyle
Captain
Jack Sparrow explained his misdeeds in 2003’s Pirates of the
Caribbean: The
Curse of the Black Pearl as follows: “Me? I’m dishonest,
and a
dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It’s the
honest
ones you want to watch out for . . . .” The statement seems to describe
many
fictional pirates – they are dependably unpredictable.
As
an employee of a costume shop that
specializes in pirate garb, I’ve
encountered
my fair share of pirate films. Here’s a list of my favorites. They all
feature
pirates who are technically criminals. They do bad things, but I can’t
help but
love them.
The
List
In
the movie Pirates of Penzance, the main character Frederick
(Rex Smith)
signs up to apprentice as a pilot, but ends up apprenticing as
a pirate
due to a miscommunication. Frederick is placed with the Pirate King
(Kevin
Kline), leader of the Pirates of Penzance. Frederick does not want to
be a
criminal, so he makes a personal commitment to ridding the seas of
pirate
ruffians. The movie is a musical comedy, so the presence of pirates who
can
sing and dance makes it hard not to love the musical mateys.
“Goonies”
is the nickname for a group of outcast preteens, who are the underdog
protagonists of the film. The movie is set in the 1980s, when the
Goonies
discover an old treasure map that supposedly leads to the famous (at
least in
hometown lore) pirate One-Eyed Willie's buried treasure. We don't ever
meet
Willy, but the fact that his legend inspired this quirky quest and
childhood
classic secures its place in my heart and on this list.
This
movie is based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel and involves a
journey
to find, you guessed it, a treasure island. Very loosely, the adventure
begins
with rumors of treasure and young Jim Hawkins’s (Jackie Cooper)
discovery of a
map. When Jim embarks on his journey, he is warned about a one-legged
pirate named
Long John Silver (Wallace Beery), whom he quickly encounters.
Throughout the
film, Long John Silver has lovable moments, leaving Jim confused as to
whether
or not Silver should be trusted. How does it turn out in the end?
You’ll have
to watch to find out.
Pirates
of the Caribbean is a
Disney
film franchise that was created because the pirate ride at Disney World
had decreased
in popularity. Rather than let the ride sit unused or tear it down, the
company
decided to create a movie in hopes of making the public fall in love
with
pirates. They succeeded. In 2003 Disney brought us Captain Jack Sparrow
(Johnny
Depp). Sparrow is the ultimate lovable bad boy: he’s good-looking; he
can swing
a sword; he has a great sense of humor; and he takes away riches from
greedy
overlords. Disney makes the audience fall in love with him, and then
they take
him away, leaving everyone wanting more.
View
the trailer
[This
pirate movie likely has the highest budget of any of the movies on the
list.
The other movies in the franchise, released after The Curse of the
Black
Pearl, follow a similar pattern to this one, so I only included one
on the
list.]
This
animated classic is based on J.M. Barrie’s
play, Peter
Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. After pre-teen Wendy is
told it is time for her to grow up, she is visited by Peter Pan, who
promises
her a life of never having to. He takes her and her younger brothers,
John and
Michael, to the magical Never Land. Never Land is full of happiness and
fun
until Peter’s nemesis, the pirate Captain Hook, captures Wendy, her
brothers,
and Peter’s friends, the Lost Boys. Peter must outwit Captain Hook to
save them.
Although the pirates in this movie are mean, they are also dim-witted
and often
humorous, which make themhard to dislike.
Hook
delves into
what happens when Peter Pan grows up. Now a stodgy businessman with
children of
his own, he has forgotten the things that were so important to him as a
child:
adventure, friendship, and fun. When Captain Hook kidnaps his children,
Peter
must return to Never Land and face his arch-nemesis, and team up with a
number
of old favorites, like Tinkerbell and the Lost Boys.) Dustin
Hoffman plays Captain Hook, and Bob
Haskins is his pirate sidekick, Smee, so of course, the pirate
characters are
irresistibly fun.
Captain
Blood
opens when Dr.
Peter Blood (Errol Flynn) is falsely convicted of treason and sold into
slavery. In an effort to become free again, the doctor and his enslaved
friends
rebel and take over the Spanish ship that attacked the city of Port
Royal. The
rebels flee and become some of the most feared pirates of the seas, but
when
they return to Port Royal, they find it has been taken over by France.
There,
the rebels must determine whether they should join the new king or
maintain
their feared status. The moral struggle they face is the perfect
example of unpredictable,
lovable pirates. They broke out of jail, but they were wrongly
imprisoned. They
fought against Port Royal, but now should they fight for it? Watch to
see.
The
Princess
Bride
is a movie with a unique cast of characters: a giant, a royal family,
the Dread
Pirate Roberts, a six-fingered man, an albino, a town booer, and even a
medicine man. The plot is unique, too. There is a standard romantic
love
triangle, but also an attempt at memory erasing, a royal wedding, a
fire swamp
filled with terrible obstacles – quicksand and rodents of unusual size
– the
avenging of a loved one’s death, and, of course, sword play. As you can
see,
the description for this pirate flick is a bit complex, so I’ll leave
it at “nothing
is as it seems, but everything is as you wish.”
Copyright
©2011 Elise Schwartz
About the Author: Elise
loves movies and writes
for
BuyPirateCostumes.com.
Visit the link above to view their collection of pirate costumes
for
children and adults.
Pirates
and Privateers
Pirates
of
Penzance, 1983