Quickie Review: The Sea Hawk

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The Sea Hawk

Errol Flynn is Geoffrey Thorpe, lead captain of The Sea Hawks, English privateers working on behalf of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. Their goal: Scrape up enough cash to convince Elizabeth to put together a real English navy before the Spanish Armada comes down on their heads.

This is Flynn at his swashbuckling best, with lots of action, a bit of romance, and a surprisingly sympathetic turn by Claude Rains as a Spanish ambassador who's daughter is wooed by Thorpe. Perhaps the most notable part though is good ol' Queen Liz, played by Flora Robson, who is just as powerful and scheming a monarch in the film as she was in real life. It's a nice surprise given the dearth of strong women in 40's films. OTOH perhaps it isn't. The Sea Hawk after all, came out in 1940, just as England was making preperations to defend itself against Nazi Germany. The parallels between Spain's avarice and Germany's conquest of Europe are none too subtle, and Queen Elizabeth is a nice stand in for her powerful descendant of the same name.