Anne Bonney, the famous female pirate (famous because she's a female, really) gets her own film and has some heavyweight talent (Phillip Dunne on script, Jacques Tourneur behind the camera) but is unfortunately let down by the disastrous miscasting of Jean Peters. She tries but is far too mild and uncharismatic in a role that cries out for someone with strength: Maureen O'Hara, Susan Hayward or Jane Russell. This was Peters' big chance and she fails.
It's a remarkable swashbuckler in that it really doesn't have a hero - Peters is a sympathetic anti-hero but is still a ruthless pirate who orders Louis Jourdan flogged and has prisoners killed; her ship's doctor Herbert Marshall is meant to be her conscience, but is really an alcoholic buffoon who is irritating; the British who fight the pirates are very ruthless, blackmailing Louis Jourdan into helping fight Peters. Jourdan I suppose is a nominal hero, but he's really mean - going undercover and making Peters fall in love with her, kissing her on the boat (surely they were having sex)... when he has a wife (Debra Paget) back at home who he prefers! I think we're meant to be on Jourdan's side when Peters kidnaps Paget and threatens to sell her into a harem, but, sorry, my sympathy's with Peters. So her about-face at the end when she comes to Jourdan and Peter's defence against Blackbeard (Thomas Gomez) isn't terribly convincing.
The chief attraction of this film is its difference to regular pirate movies: there's a female protagonist, the male romantic lead is French rather than British, Peters and Paget have some enjoyable squabbles. There's also a decent amount of colour and action plus some fun scenery chewing performances from Thomas Gomez and James Robertson Justice. But it still feels like a failure.
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