Against All Flags

1952 "He Ravished The Pirate Port Of Madagascar To Steal The Love Of Its Corsair Queen!"
6.5| 1h23m| NR| en
Details

A British naval officer fights pirates in Madagascar.

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Universal International Pictures

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Reviews

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
Filipe Neto This film is a swashbuckling "Captain Blood" style, in which the immortal heartthrob Errol Flynn plays a British officer who infiltrates a pirate den to undermine his coastal defenses and allow an English attack. Flynn is in a comfortable role and provides us with a performance within what we could expect from him. Next to him are Maureen O'Hara and Anthony Quinn, the latter in the role of the villain. Quinn had a relatively contained performance, despite his character being a bully. O'Hara seeks to establish himself in a middle ground between the feminine sensuality and the strength and personality that her character demanded. I don't know to what extent this effort was fruitful, but I believe the actress could have done better. In addition, being a period film and being piracy a strongly masculine activity, her character lacks verisimilitude. Worse than that is just Alice Kelley, in a character very stereotyped and loaded with subliminal sexual allusions. In short: its a film that satisfies swashbuckling connoisseurs but is far from the greatness of other films of this genre.
utgard14 Errol Flynn plays a British naval officer who goes undercover with pirates and romances pirate captain Maureen O'Hara. Jealous pirate Anthony Quinn is suspicious and believes Flynn to be a spy. Expect a swordfight at some point.Touted as being one of Flynn's better '50s films. I'd have to agree with that, although this still doesn't hold a candle to his best films from 1935 to 1945. As everybody pretty much knows, Flynn was an alcoholic and, by this time, years of abuse had started to take its toll on his handsome features. While he would look much worse just a few short years later, here he still looks like he's ten years older than his actual age. That being said, it doesn't affect his ability to act. He still has a good screen presence, charm, and pleasant chemistry with O'Hara. Speaking of Maureen O'Hara, she's as lovely and feisty as ever. She's always a treat to watch and here she's the highlight of the picture for me. Anthony Quinn goes through the motions as the villain. Dig his velvet coat, though. It pops like so many of the colors in this. Gotta love Technicolor. It's not Flynn's last swashbuckler but it's his last good one.
clivey6 Latter day Errol Flynn pirate adventure, filmed in sumptuous colour and with Anthony Quinn and Maureen O'Hara providing fine support as the villainy and love interest respectively (of course!). O'Hara was in the not dissimilar Black Swan but I much prefer her in this, as a feisty pirate captain called Spitfire. She wears Lincoln green a lot, perhaps as a nod to Flynn's Robin Hood many years earlier.Sadly, I found Flynn to be the weakest link here. People say he's aged a lot in this, but no more than many of us do in over a decade, certainly no more than Bond stars Connery and Moore did in the same amount of time. I don't mind the 19th-hole, fetch-me-a-double-whiskey-and-Xerox-it pallour, rather that Flynn seems to be a man with the fight completely knocked out of him. There's none of the animus or spirit of his earlier performances - and Flynn without spirit is like Connery without his dangerous edge - or, as Connery appeared in Never Say Never Again. In fact, this vehicle has the feel of a belated comeback picture like NSNA or Indy and the Crystal Skulls, there's the sense that something is not quite right with the leading man. There's a defeated, shifty look in Flynn's eyes that's very uncharismatic.It doesn't help that the script seems written for Flynn in his younger glory years, a lady killer who can turn Spitfire's head without preamble. It's a scene that anticipates Connery and Karin Dor in YOLT, but at least Connery had a bit more of the youthful, indolent way about him still then.I didn't care either for the plot, a Donnie Brasco-type thing where Flynn is a naval officer posing as a deserter to infiltrate the pirate colony, but that's just my taste. Like Lazenby in OHMSS going undercover as Sir Hilary Bray, it works against the leading man's natural brio and bravado. It would have helped to show some dastardly, nasty pirate behaviour early on to justify his undercover actions, because often Flynn plays the outraged insubordinate rather than an establishment figure. Still, the look of the film carried me through and I wish Captain Blood had been filmed in that sort of colour.
Jessica-65 I just finished a mini-marathon of Errol Flynn pirate movies: Captain Blood (1935), The Sea Hawk (1940), and Against All Flags (1952). Strangely, I'd never heard of AAF, though I knew most of Flynn's other films. It was interesting to see Flynn's face change so dramatically over the years, and listen to his accent become more American. I've never heard anyone mention this before, but I find that in his 40s, Errol Flynn looked a great deal like John Wayne. In fact, I had to blink more than once during AAF to remind myself that this was *not* John Wayne! I enjoyed this film, mainly thanks to the three leads, as others have said. I had read a previous review about how sexist this movie is, so I was prepared for the worst, but I didn't find it *that* bad (comparatively speaking), except for the stupid ending. The insistence of Maureen O'Hara's character that she will only kiss a man when she feels like it, instead of the other way around, her intelligence, confidence, honesty and her kindness to her "rival" all seem pretty feminist to me. On the other hand, apparently it's quite all right to sell the Indian princess's nine companions into marriage, as long as the princess herself is saved!Overall, though, I found this film more racist than sexist. The villain is once again the olive-skinned Hispanic (Anthony Quinn), and the "Indian" princess in her harem outfit (played by a white actress, naturally) is so stupid she shouldn't be allowed to cross a street by herself!I wasn't that thrilled by the sword-fighting, but that might be due to an overdose after watching three movies' worth! I don't know whether it was the soundtrack, but Errol Flynn spoke so softly throughout this film that often I had trouble understanding what he said. One little question: if you'd just stabbed someone, wouldn't the owner expect to see a little blood on his knife when you returned it to him? The technicolor shows to good advantage, and I'd like to know where they filmed the outdoor scenes! All in all, an enjoyable pirate movie for an evening's entertainment.