The Sea Hawk (1924)

I love this movie so much

Great Film overall

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Raphael Sabatini wrote several dozen wonderful adventure novels in the early 20th century. They were very popular and are a nice blend of action, adventure, romance and history. I've read about 30 of them and enjoyed every one of them. Most have never been made into films, but a few (such as "Captain Blood" and "The Black Swan") have. In the case of "The Sea Hawk", Hollywood made their own version and a few years later DIDN'T. Let me explain. The 1924 version of "The Sea Hawk" is pretty close to Sabatini's novel. However, the more famous Errol Flynn version from 1940 is practically nothing like the book other than the title. I am not 100% sure why they did this--the original story was exciting. I suspect, however, that Warner Brothers used an entirely different story and kept the title because this was intended as pure propaganda. At the time, Britain was at war with the Nazis and the film was meant to glorify the British fighting spirit against all odds--including Spanish invaders. The 1940 film is about the time of the Spanish Armada--England's greatest military triumph. Now I am not saying the Flynn film is bad, I love it, but it's NOT the Sabatini story at all. It's a shame, as the Sabatini story is quite exciting.Milton Sills plays Sir Oliver Tressilian--a man who used to be a privateer for England during the time of Queen Elizabeth. These days are behind him and he's retired to his country estate. He wishes to wed his neighbor, Lady Godolphin, but things always seem to get in the way. First, her family refuses and insult his honor. Then, his own half-brother kills one of the Godolphins and Sir Oliver protects him--only to have his no-good half-brother try to sell him into slavery to the Moors!! However, instead of selling him, the ship's captain (Wallace Beery) becomes friends with Sir Oliver and is about to return him to England...when, a Spanish ship attacks and all of the crew members and Sir Oliver are taken prisoner and made Spanish galley slaves! Eventually, when the ship with Sir Oliver is taken by Barbary pirates (from Muslim North Africa), Sir Oliver is able to work his way up in the Barbary navy to command his own ship. Soon, using the skills he developed as a privateer, he is able to make a huge name for himself. But what about his wicked half-brother and his fiancée? Well, see the film and find out for yourself!! This film has an amazingly complex plot, a wonderful story, very good acting, GREAT costumes...it has it all. And, it's exciting from start to finish--making it one of the best silent epics you can see today. There really isn't much to dislike about this lovely film and I am thrilled that it stayed so faithful to the original source material.

Long thought lost or incomplete the Sea Hawk survives much the way i was seen in 1924. A long costume film about pirates it was directed by the dependable Frank Lloyd and stars Milton Sills. My only complaint with the DVD is that the film has been bathed in re-tint & re-tone. The color at times can be so rich one can't see details in the film. I'd much rather have seen the movie in pure black & white. At times this movie can remind one of Ben-Hur released a year later, especially in the at-sea sequences. As far as the filmmaking, everything is top notch but it is still 1924. That camera will not move but the pictorial capture is beautiful. Lloyd is dependable and like many Hollywood directors he won't give anything more than dependability. Kind of like Harry Beaumont directing Beau Brummel that same year. Lloyd, at least at this time, won't think of panning the camera or a deep soft focus as would King Vidor or Alan Crosland. But what he gives us is exquisite & exciting. I was glad to finally see this film after so many years. dir. Frank Lloyd, First National.

Sea Hawk, The (1924) *** (out of 4) Oliver Tressilian (Milton Sills) goes from a rich man to slave and then works his way back up in this faithful adaptation of Rafael Sabatini's famous novel. Most people know the 1940 Errol Flynn version, which is considered a major classic but that version left me rather flat when i watched it a couple years ago. This silent version isn't a classic but to me it's somewhat more entertaining. The funny thing is that I praised the Flynn version for various battle scenes but it turns out that many of them were lifted from this film because Warner felt they couldn't top the scenes here. The battle scenes here are certainly the highlight and the slave mutiny is full of excitement. Sills, a major star in the silent era who is now forgotten, delivers a very strong performance but the screenplay doesn't offer him too much outside the lover/fighter part. Wallace Beery is also good in his role as another Captain but Enid Bennett is rather lame as the love interest. Towards the end of the film there's some nice tinted scenes but the real surprise was the hand colored flames, which appear in three scenes.

As swashbuckling a pirate movie as you can imagine, spanning 3 continents, as many cultures and 2 religions, it is also a charming historical piece. I won't be discussing the entire plot of the movie, just touching on a few things.Though we often train ourselves to think that our forbears were stuffy and conservative while we are open-minded and liberal, this film, as so many silent films do, shows us differently. There are open statements about the falseness of Christianity *as practiced by the Christians as depicted in this movie*, and Islam is shown as a valid and equal alternative - you certainly wouldn't see any of that today! And it is the portrayal of Islam in the movie that prompted me to write, if only as a segment on a larger theme: historical accuracy. I'm not sure which was more interesting, the things they got right or those they got wrong.I was amazed to see how very realistic the costumes looked - one of the men even looked as though taken out of a portrait of the Earl of Leicester (Queen Elizabeth's "boyfriend") in old age, right down to the dark streak in the middle of his rather oval beard. I'm not used to silent movies getting it right, costume-wise. But my "faith" was restored at the first sight of the heroine. She was laughably dressed in a hodge-podge of Tudor, Elizabethan and 20's shaped clothes. It's only her beauty that keeps you (okay, maybe just me) from laughing outright. Though her outfits do improve somewhat, they never reach anywhere near the accuracy of the men's, nor do any of the women's. Oh well; they're costumed enough so you get the general feel of what they are supposed to portray; I suppose I shouldn't try to demand more! I am not nearly as much of an expert on period Arabian clothes, but I do believe they got the armor (the helmets, for sure) correct. They certainly looked like what most people expect - sometimes a director has to go for that. But when it came to Islam, and the customs of the surrounding culture, they were either amazingly accurate - like the marriage by declaration, and a married woman having to be veiled - or hysterically wrong. For instance, a young villain is said to be "harem-born & woman raised". It was silly to mention the first part - all babies are born where their mothers are - but the latter part would never have happened: boys were taken from their mothers by around age 7, especially boys of a ruling family; they would need to be trained in the arts of war and leadership. Then there was the amazingly convenient bit about how "Muslim law demands the captives be sold in the market place." Oh sure, tell us anything, what do we know? And the name "Fenzileh"?? Who comes up with these things? Same guy who came up with "Allahkibollah!" as an exclamation, I guess! :-) But I must stress that these errors are minor, and do not in any way detract from the movie as a whole. If anything, they add a bit of comic relief - if not as superb as that delivered by Wallace Beery, who amply demonstrates here how he came to be a lasting fixture in Hollywood. He is a stand out among the more usual posturing/gesturing done by most of the other players - none of whom can be truly faulted. I am sure that had not Milton Sills died so tragically young(ish), he would have been a major star for years to come.