Movie review - "Seven Seas to Calais" (1963) **

A jolly swashbuckler about the life of Sir Francis Drake with an enthusiastic Rod Taylor perhaps not entirely well cast, but he makes a solid fist of the role, and has a compelling scene where he must hang an old friend who is guilty of mutiny. The film might have been better off concentrating on one or two events in Drake’s life instead of trying to cover all the famous bits. There are a number of unintentional laughs – some of the model ships, the painful “comic” Indian interlude, the performance of Hedy Vessell – but it is all rousing with strong production values and plenty of action.