A better than usual 1960s Spaghetti-wood adventure movie that is superior to many Hollywood efforts in some ways.
Firstly all the leading actors are top notch, Rod Taylor makes an excellent Francis Drake, a brash man of the World on the make, Irene Worth provides the charismatic performance expected from a QE1, Keith Michell provides just the right mix of brave and naïve, as Drakes apprentice hero, who is very willing, but has much to learn from his more experienced mentor, Edy Vessel makes an ethereal love interest for the younger hero and seeing Terrence Hill before he became "Terrence Hill"... makes for an interesting curiosity.
Then there is the script, which, while not exactly "historically accurate" is at least soundly constructed around a framework of broadly authentic events, rather than being completely made up. The "potato" incident is not one of them, but as it's only there to provide comic relief, I'll give it a pass.
The costumes and indoor sets are suitably colourful and impressive, and those who know about such things suggest that the musical score is too.
The film starts with a hiss and a roar, with several decent sword fights, but then momentum starts to slip away the longer the voyage goes on. Here is where the budget limitations begin to become apparent. The producers appear to have obtained two life size "ships", but are they real ships or merely facsimiles constructed on top of shallow bottomed barges or rafts? The thing is they are only ever shown on millpond smooth water and although the sails are up they are not moving, or healing over, like a real ship would (or even a decent model). Drake manages to sail around the infamously stormy Cape Horn without a single wave troubling the surface of the ocean.
Next Drake and co decide to go ashore and encounter some sleeping Portuguese and then some dozy Spaniards, at a Spanish mine. This is another impressive indoor set, which looks like a leftover from a "Swords and Sandals" epic. More sword fighting ensues. Next Drake and co arrive near a harbour and capture two Spanish ships, more by subterfuge than swashbuckling, and acquire the requisite treasure. The only problem with this is that the ships they capture look suspiciously like their own (because, due to budget constraints of course, they probably are). The water is again millpond smooth and there is little sword play and no ship to ship action, which is disappointing. Then it's off to rest up and enjoy some comic relief (cue potatoes) with a tribe of relatively friendly South American natives, before heading for home.
Back to England in time to foil an attempt to replace QE1 with Mary Queen of Scots (another occasion which would have benefitted from a more extensive sword fighting scene), followed by the approach of the Spanish Armada. Now the director makes use of some model ships or perhaps footage from a previous movie, which show ships that are actually sailing, with the waves and the moving and the wind ruffling the sails. But, sadly, even that previous movie had its own budget constraints, so it suddenly becomes night, in order to disguise the fact that there is not actually an Armada or an English fleet (or perhaps it's from a different movie or a different part of the same movie?) The combining of the stock footage, with new close-up work of Drake and co spliced in, is quite skilfully done without being entirely convincing.
Definitely worth a watch for fans of the Swashbuckler genre.
PS - Apparently, during filming, Rod Taylor was dating Anita Ekberg, now that explains everything!
Firstly all the leading actors are top notch, Rod Taylor makes an excellent Francis Drake, a brash man of the World on the make, Irene Worth provides the charismatic performance expected from a QE1, Keith Michell provides just the right mix of brave and naïve, as Drakes apprentice hero, who is very willing, but has much to learn from his more experienced mentor, Edy Vessel makes an ethereal love interest for the younger hero and seeing Terrence Hill before he became "Terrence Hill"... makes for an interesting curiosity.
Then there is the script, which, while not exactly "historically accurate" is at least soundly constructed around a framework of broadly authentic events, rather than being completely made up. The "potato" incident is not one of them, but as it's only there to provide comic relief, I'll give it a pass.
The costumes and indoor sets are suitably colourful and impressive, and those who know about such things suggest that the musical score is too.
The film starts with a hiss and a roar, with several decent sword fights, but then momentum starts to slip away the longer the voyage goes on. Here is where the budget limitations begin to become apparent. The producers appear to have obtained two life size "ships", but are they real ships or merely facsimiles constructed on top of shallow bottomed barges or rafts? The thing is they are only ever shown on millpond smooth water and although the sails are up they are not moving, or healing over, like a real ship would (or even a decent model). Drake manages to sail around the infamously stormy Cape Horn without a single wave troubling the surface of the ocean.
Next Drake and co decide to go ashore and encounter some sleeping Portuguese and then some dozy Spaniards, at a Spanish mine. This is another impressive indoor set, which looks like a leftover from a "Swords and Sandals" epic. More sword fighting ensues. Next Drake and co arrive near a harbour and capture two Spanish ships, more by subterfuge than swashbuckling, and acquire the requisite treasure. The only problem with this is that the ships they capture look suspiciously like their own (because, due to budget constraints of course, they probably are). The water is again millpond smooth and there is little sword play and no ship to ship action, which is disappointing. Then it's off to rest up and enjoy some comic relief (cue potatoes) with a tribe of relatively friendly South American natives, before heading for home.
Back to England in time to foil an attempt to replace QE1 with Mary Queen of Scots (another occasion which would have benefitted from a more extensive sword fighting scene), followed by the approach of the Spanish Armada. Now the director makes use of some model ships or perhaps footage from a previous movie, which show ships that are actually sailing, with the waves and the moving and the wind ruffling the sails. But, sadly, even that previous movie had its own budget constraints, so it suddenly becomes night, in order to disguise the fact that there is not actually an Armada or an English fleet (or perhaps it's from a different movie or a different part of the same movie?) The combining of the stock footage, with new close-up work of Drake and co spliced in, is quite skilfully done without being entirely convincing.
Definitely worth a watch for fans of the Swashbuckler genre.
PS - Apparently, during filming, Rod Taylor was dating Anita Ekberg, now that explains everything!