A surprisingly feminist pirate movie, at least by the standards of English speaking cinema - the hero is a woman, Gianna Maria Canale, who takes over her dad's pirate operation: she is an excellent fighter and even beats her own boyfriend (Anthony Steel) in a duel. And her antagonist is another woman, a smart rich one, Maria Grazia Spina.
Steel looks old and tired here - the drinking was kicking in. He's still in shape and has all his hair, he just looks old. He seems emasculated. Not that interested. Steel played a number of emasculated characters, eg the infertile sook in A Question of Adulteryy.
John Kitzmiller, a black American (he was in Dr No) is Canale's mute sidekick, Turpentine, if I'm not mistaken. At least POC have presence (even if he dies saving his mistress).
There's decent production value but it's poorly directed and choreographed. There's no life to it - despite the story. It's one of those set ups that should have worked - imagine Maureen O'Hara or Yvonne de Carlo in it. But it's sluggish. The bad dubbing doesn't help. Steel had a deep speaking voice better than his dubber.
No comments:
Post a Comment