The Devil-Ship Pirates

Beautiful Eastmancolor 2.35:1 widescreen production with lots of action. "The Devil-Ship Pirates" is a well-paced and directed Hammer film with a decent budget and fine acting, including Sir Christopher Lee (then just plain Mr. Lee) convincingly mean and cruel as a pirate captain. One of Lee's better acting jobs in my opinion as he swashes and buckles (including some good sword fights) in an energetic role.

English vs. Spaniards and pirates at the time of the Armada, while not much at sea there is plenty of action. Will hold your attention and moves at a brisk pace, therefore everyone can watch and everyone will be entertained.

Don Sharp directed this pirate film set in 1588, where a pirate ship led by Captain Robeles(played by Christopher Lee) is fighting for the Spanish Armada against the British. Their ship is badly damaged, and must go into dock for necessary repairs before they are captured. Their only chance is to convince an isolated nearby English village that in fact, the Spanish have won the battle(and not the other way around) which they manage to do at first, but after awhile, the village men become suspicious, and begin a campaign of sabotage and resistance, in the hope that they are in fact right... Good adventure yarn with interesting premise, fine acting, and well-staged action scenes. One of the best non-horrors from Hammer studios.

Or The Eagle Has Landed...

Out of Hammer Film Productions, The Devil-Ship Pirates is directed by Don Sharp and written by Jimmy Sangster. Filmed in Eastman Colour and Megascope, it stars Christopher Lee, John Cairney, Barry Warren, Suzanne Farmer, Natasha Pyne, Andrew Keir, Philip Latham and Michael Ripper. Music is by Gary Hughes and cinematography by Michael Reed.

July 1588. In the English Channel the British Fleet has been battling for two days against the mighty Spanish Armada.....

Badly damaged, with half their crews killed, the ships of Spain battle their way up the Channel. And in the thickest part of the fighting is one of the smallest Spanish ships – the licensed privateer Diablo.

OK, so it's practically a landlocked pirate film, with the water antics confined to the running a ground of the Diablo ship up some English estuary. Yet this should not detract from the good old swashbuckling fun available in this Hammer pirate adventure. Premise basically sees Christopher Lee's band of pirates take control of a remote English village by the sea, they achieve this by telling them that Spain has triumphed in the war and Blighty is under Spanish rule. With most of the village men out fighting the war, there are only a few English guys around and the village is mostly populated by ladies. Some of the village citizens are far from enamoured with the Spaniards being in control, others are a bit more compliant. Something's going to give if the truth will out.

With sets used from The Scarlet Blade the previous year, production value is hardly high. But as is often the case with Hammer, you can't really tell as the film is vibrant in colour and costuming. Great cast assembled as well. Lee hardly stretches himself but is most enjoyable to watch swishing a blade and generally being a miserable tyrant. Around Lee are a roll call of stoic Hammer performers, with Ripper (getting a meatier role than usual), Keir, Cairney, Warren and Farmer leaving telling marks. The script slips in some cynicism via a couple of weasel village elders, and there's class distinction in here as well, while much heroic interest is garnered by having Cairney's resistance leader as being lame in one arm on account of a previous scuffle with the Spanish. A true hero!

Much of the budget went on the construction of The Diablo ship. It was a ship that went down in Hammer folklore as a pain in the derrière. Such was the bad craftsmanship it often caused accidents, while it also capsized and cost the production a number of cameras and equipment. For the finale in the film the ship is seen ablaze, that's real, they gladly burnt it! But it's a great prop and is well used by Sharp. The director also handles his action sequences well enough, with three solid sword fights of note, one of which is played out in and around a marshy bog. But any expectation of Lee and co being Tyrone Power like will only lead to disappointment. Elsewhere, Reed's Eastman Colour photography is mostly rich and vibrant, though a bit lifeless around the water scenes and Hughes scores it plainly with standard Hammer strains.

It has many flaws, obviously for a low budgeted Hammer yarn; for one thing the Spanish invaders are more British than the villagers! But this is still very good genre film making, not a dull moment to be had in what is a classic Sunday afternoon adventure. 7/10

A damaged Spanish pirate ship, captained by a ruthless Christopher Lee, is forced to land on the English shore and needs local help to get her ship-shape. Hammer are best known for their horror films but the studio often diversified into other genres, here a period swashbuckler. In addition to great costumes and sets we get obvious day for night scenes, plus some questionable continuity (one scene goes from thick fog to blue sky and back to fog with seconds). Hammer's most prolific star Michael Ripper has a major role, as opposed to his usual bit parts. He doesn't make a very convincing Spaniard, with his fake tan and rural English accent. In fact, all of the Spanish pirates amazingly speak fluent English, very impressive for the 16th Century! But this is all part of the charm. Lee is very good as the ship's captain, a nasty character indeed. Hardly a Hammer classic but an enjoyable yarn none the less.

As I said in my review for THE PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER (1962), this is a virtual retread of the script for that film (just as THE TERROR OF THE TONGS [1961] had reworked the central premise of THE STRANGLERS OF BOMBAY [1960] – all four titles, incidentally, comprise Columbia's recent "Icons Of Adventure" DVD set)…or, perhaps, it was closer to what Jimmy Sangster had originally envisaged before John Gilling got to work on it!

In any case, the two pirate films don't have just the plot in common – but many of the names associated with BLOOD RIVER resume their duties on DEVIL-SHIP, including composer Gary Hughes as well as several Hammer stalwarts (production designer Bernard Robinson, editor James Needs, not to mention co-stars Christopher Lee, Andrew Keir and Michael Ripper, all of whose characters are practically identical!). This doesn't mean that the film is a cheap rip-off of the earlier effort: it can stand well enough on its own merits, and there are even those who prefer DEVIL-SHIP to BLOOD RIVER; as ever, the company managed to give the whole a semblance of expensive production values when it was typically done on a low-budget.

The rest of the cast is generally effective, if not quite as satisfactory as that of BLOOD RIVER – even so, characterization is more fleshed-out this time around: John Cairney does alright by the hero (who, unusually, is a cripple); Suzan Farmer is a lovely heroine (though she gets little to do – but, then, neither did Marla Landi – and in her case, it's Lee who leers at the girl rather than his underlings); Duncan Lamont is imposing as Lee's right-hand man, but his role never really amounts to much; Keir and Ripper were both better served by each's first stab at their respective roles (Ripper, in particular, is here merely to supply the obligatory comic relief). However, we do get a couple of interesting 'new' characters: Farmer's aristocratic father (Ernest Clark) is a sycophant, while Barry Warren – a Spaniard officer detailed with an outfit of pirates-turned-soldiers is an outsider amidst their ranks and, on several occasions, lends a helping hand to the locals in order to defeat them! By the way, the narrative deals with the aftermath of the Spanish Armada's defeat by the British in the late 16th century; a stray vessel, the "Diablo" (hence the film's title), decides to rest furtively on British soil to effect the necessary repairs – however, when they're discovered, the Captain (Lee, of course) decides to risk passing themselves off as conquerors and, in no time at all, has the run of the village!

The groveling Clark is all-too-willing in this respect (to the point of inviting Lee into his own house…but, on objecting to the latter's unsavory attentions towards his daughter, is summarily executed!), while Keir offers opposition – and pays the price for this affront with his life. His son, Cairney, naturally seeks revenge – which he attains, with Warren's help, by sabotaging the ship (Lee having ordered the artisans among the locals to carry out the required maintenance). Incidentally, unlike THE PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER, this does feature reasonable large-scale action with a sea-battle at the very start and a literally explosive climax. The ultimate assessment, then, is that THE DEVIL-SHIP PIRATES is a pretty good adventure flick…though, when it comes to director Sharp's Hammer output, I still feel he did his best work on the far more typical THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE (1963) – which, if you ask me, is a genuine minor classic of Gothic Horror.