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The noblewoman's reverie, the Harlequin side of Du Maurier: "Oh, he's that kind of a pirate." Mitchell Leisen eagerly seizes it for full Technicolor swank with a masked ball (bright yellow brocades, cascading brown perukes, plumes on a red-and-white checkered floor) and then heads outdoors for pinkish skies. The London lady (Joan Fontaine) is bored with court and hubby (Ralph Forbes), a trip to the Cornwall manor brings far more adventure than she expected. The marauding cutthroat turns out to be a gentle Gallic rogue (Arturo de Córdova) who specializes in charcoal sketches but can take over an enemy vessel if the mood strikes him, his crew favors soft shanties and the occasional drag show. "Another mood, another impulse," onto his galley she hops for a few lessons in piracy, "an exact science." The Rebecca painting is the protagonist's own bedroom portrait, the aristocratic ideal she escapes from in disguise—breeches and cap replace corset during raids, though not before a little Freudian gag where she gropes the ship's steering ram. Hairy chests and puffy shirts, Debussy interludes for the seasick maiden. "It's too bad you're not a boy." "Why do I have to be a boy to do that?" End of the holiday, waiting back home is the sinister rake (Basil Rathbone) with little use for feminine emancipation. (The climactic duel takes place not when the captain crosses swords with guards, but when the heroine makes the villainous lecher feel the weight of a suit of armor.) "A most becoming fever" from Leisen, who understands the ultimate dilemma of the dreamer who goes too far or perhaps not far enough. Minnelli (The Pirate) and Tourneur (Anne of the Indies) take it from here. With Nigel Bruce, Cecil Kellaway, Moyna Macgill, Harald Maresch, and Billy Daniel.
--- Fernando F. Croce |