Sea Hawk, The (Warner 1940, Errol Flynn, Donald Crisp)

Spirited swashbuckler The Sea Hawk cemented Errol Flynn’s dashing image he’d created with ‘Captain Blood’ (also directed by Curtiz) with his derring-do as Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe, an English buccaneer battling the Spanish at the behest of Elizabeth I (Flora Robson).

There was no expense spared for the battles at sea and some of the most spirited swordplay ever seen on film. Flynn did his own stunts, driven to the edge of disaster by a slave-driving Curtiz.

A rousing score by Korngold. Koch’s first screenplay was based on a classic adventure novel by Rafael Sabatini, author of ‘Scaramouche’.

Warner Bros. built a new sound stage for The Sea Hawk, complete with a 12-foot-deep ocean tank. In it were two full-scale sailing vessels, 135 and 165 feet long.

Academy Award Nominations: 4, including Best Score; Best Sound.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6_XIJm0_Wgc

production details
USA | Warner | 127 minutes | 1940
Director: Michael Curtiz
Script: Seton I. Miller, Rafael Sabatini, Howard W. Koch,

cast
Lester Matthews as Guard Officer
Edgar Buchanan as Ben Rollins
Stuart Holmes as
Herbert Anderson as Eph Winters
Mary Anderson as Maid of Honor
John Sutton as Captain of the Guard
Henry Daniell as Lord Wolfingham
Claude Rains as Don José Alvarez de Cordoba
Brenda Marshall as Doña Maria Alvarez de Cordoba
William Lundigan as Danny Logan
Frank Wilcox as Martin Barrett
Jack La Rue as Lt. Ortega
Leyland Hodgson as Officer
Julien Mitchell as Oliver Scott
Donald Crisp as Admiral Sir John Burleson
Clyde Cook as Walter Boggs
Ellis Irving as Monty Preston
Frank Lackteen as Capt. Ortiz
Robert Warwick as Frobisher
Leonard Mudie as Castle Sentry
Art Miles as Drum Beater
Gerald Mohr as Spanish Messenger
Flora Robson as Queen Elizabeth
Anthony Warde as Whipper
Halliwell Hobbes as Astronomer
Victor Varconi as Gen. Aguirre
Nestor Paiva as First Slavemaster
Alan Hale as Carl Pitt
Leo White as
Alec Craig as Chartmaker
Frederick Worlock as Darnell
Errol Flynn as Captain Geoffrey Thorpe
Una O’Connor as Miss Latham
James Stephenson as Abbott
Gilbert Roland as Capt. Lopez
Montagu Love as King Philip II
David Bruce as Martin Burke
Clifford Brooke as William Tuttle
Fritz Leiber as Inquisitor
Francis McDonald as Kroner
Pedro de Cordoba as Capt. Mendoza
Ian Keith as Peralta
Harry Cording as Slavemaster
Whit Bissell as Gate Guard at Palace Entrance
J.W. Cody as Whipper
Maurice Costello as Man Carrying Spear
Michael Harvey as Sea Hawk
Charles Irwin as Arnold Cross
Dave Kashner as Whipper
Colin Kenny as Officer
Crauford Kent as Lieutenant
Jack Richardson as
Elizabeth Sifton as Maid of Honor
Jay Silverheels as Native Lookout
David Thursby as Driver
Harry Worth as Spanish Officer
J. M. Kerrigan as Eli Matson