Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Boarding Party Bingo
Captain Horatio Hornblower (USA, 1951)
The Age of Sail lasted almost three millennia until wind power was replaced by steam in the late 1800s — a time that, in the mid-twentieth century, was still within living memory. Swashbuckling sea stories are still with us, but as a subject for big-budget movies, they peaked in the early Fifties. Like Westerns, many of these sea stories followed formula, and while some were great, most were considerably less than that. Let’s look at three cutlass-swinging adventures from 1951-52, two of which are worth watching even seventy years later. Out swords and pistols, me lads, and prepare to board!
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