Having tried his hand successfully at most other genres Jacques Tourneur, son of the great Maurice, moved to swashbucklers in 1950 via the Burt Lancaster vehicle The Flame And The Arrow. Having enjoyed a huge international success with Flame he followed it with a fictionalized account of Anne Boney, a lady pirate who became Anne Providence for the movie. Shot in the old (and best) three-stripe Technicolor Tourneur gets the movie off with a bang as Anne's ship captures another and quickly disposes of the crew via the traditional plank. Quickly establishing a major plot point Tourneur has her balk at dishing out the same treatment to Pierre La Rochelle (Louis Jourdan) and inviting him to join her crew. From there on it's pretty formulaic, we know Peters is going to fall for Jourdan and that he will either have a wife/fiancée or be a spy and as things turn out he is guilty on both counts. Herbert Marshall is the pick of the supporting cast as might be expected whilst James Robertson Justice is a joke as a pirate with a voice half a tone higher than Tiny Tim and a Scottish accent that would bring a blush to the cheek of Dick Van Dyke. With Tourneur at the helm it can't be ALL bad but a little more good would be nice.
Review of Anne of the Indies
