Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Invitation to a Keelhauling
Pirates of Tortuga (USA, 1961) Once upon a time, back in the mid-20th century, pirate movies were a genre unto themselves, like Westerns, gangster films, or jungle adventures, familiar fare at Saturday matinees with rollicking stories and reliable action, with cutlass duels and fiery ship battles. Though the genre dwindled and then died by the late ‘60s, it evoked fond memories and was regularly revived thereafter in big-budget epics that were mostly too overblown and bloated for their own good….