Frenchman's Creek (1944)

Why don't they make movies like this anymore? I had never seen this movie before and considering the year it was made it was fairly "spicey". Some great acting,especially Bail Rathbone and with his Dr Watson sidekick in the cast, I expected him to put on his deer stalker hat!I have to applaud the scenery and photography and of course the costumes. The scene where our heroine sees the Pirate Ship for the first time from the cliff top in all it's glory is breathtaking. Having lived in Devon and Cornwall I can't remember a beautiful day and calm seas at any time like that scene. Of course it wasn't shot in Cornwall at all.Slow start but it got very exciting from the half way point. And the heroine killing the damnable male villain. That's in vogue now. Super heroine before her time.If only Errol Flynn had played the Pirate lover I would have given it a 10

Arturo de Cordova was not Spanish, he was Mexican. His first language was Spanish, but that does not make him "Spanish." Mexican and Spanish are two different things.The film aired today on TCM. It was a rare showing of this movie, which I have been hunting down since reading about it in Mitchell Leisen's biography 43 years ago. It was then that I read and never forgot about the sumptuous Oscar-winning Technicolor cinematography. I was heartbroken to see it in an extremely washed-out transfer but anything is better than nothing. Would it be possible for Universal to place this on a list of important restorations, given its place in Oscar history?

In the era when pirates and their freebooter crews still held sway upon the ocean and near the coasts with their fast and well armed ships, a beautiful Frenchwoman is trapped in a marriage to a noble buffoon and tries to find relief from him and his obnoxious friends at court by taking her children to the family's summer estate on the coast. The house is beautiful and isolated but everything seems out of place. Clearly something is amiss with the house and servants and the noble lady realizes she needs to find out why. To her surprise it is used by a swashbuckling pirate and his crew as their private and very secret hideaway. The lady is indignant and decides to intervene. How could she know this would change her life, forever? Basil Rathbone is at his best and Joan Fontaine is a classic leading lady. Great sword fight with Holyywood's master swordsman, Basil battling to the death. If you love a swashbuckler with romance and fun, this is it.

My favorite pirate film was the "Black Swan" (and I didn't hate "Cutthroat Island", either!), but this is a close second even though there is less sea action and it's more ABOUT a pirate. The sets and acting are wonderful; the use of color is magnificent. This is a very enjoyable film with the gorgeous Joan Fonatine (Olivia deHavilland's estranged sister) acting up a storm and at her peak of pulchritude, and the magnificent Basil Rathbone demonstrating his soaring acting talent. The hilight of the film for me was one of the best fight scenes ever filmed - an all-out battle-to-the-death between Rathbone - and Fontaine!! A classic!