"Il corsaro nero" or "Blackie the Pirate" is a co-production between Italy and Spain from 1971, so this film has its 50th anniversary now in 2021. High time to watch it, isn't it? Well, it was on tonight, probably not linked to this anniversary, but I still decided to give it a go because I kike some of the actors. It runs for over 1.5 hours, but stays under the 100-minute mark (according to imdb), and the director and writer here is Lorenzo Gicca Palli. He was not unprolific really, so it surprises me a bit to see that no date of death or date of birth is stated here on imdb. You could say that this is time-wise from the mdidle of his career. He did not have the longes career, but during these approximately 20 years, he was highly prolific. Not only because of this man's origin, this is also a much more Italian than Spanish film. The language is also Italian, but if you see Terence Hill and Bud Spencer being a part of this, nobody should be surprised. This legendary duo brought us so much joy during their long careers. May Spencer rest in peace and hopefully Hill, also in his 80s now, can still live on for a few years. I think he still is not retired, so it may be a good sign that his health is at a decent level. If you do the maths, this also means that he was arpound the age of 30 here when this got made, minimally older when it got released. Hill plays the title character here and this is pretty fitting. He has most of the screen time and most of the story. I sometimed wondered in later films why he got first credit and not Spencer, but here it is no contest. Spencer is further behind in terms of screen time. Not even second credit. He is still one of the bigger supporting players, but the poster is still misleading. It looks as if they are oon equal terms and this is so not the case. I guess the poster must have been created later on when they know how beloved this duo was already and also how big of an icon Spencer turned into. Or was about to turn into. Their glorious collaborations are from the 70s and first half of the 80s you can say. So they were definitely trying new things with this movie we have here, but it was not a huge success yet. The fact that this was on television today makes it obvious that it is not forgotten or a failure, but yeah in terms of fun, it is nowhere near other movies. Earlier they focused on western films and there the approach was similar. Hill was at the center of the story and Spencer played a bit of a character where you could never be too sure if he was good or bad in contrast to the protagonist. But the western genre was losing appreciation much earlier than 50 years ago already, so they were trying to come up with new trails. Pirate movies were an interesting idea and who knows, maybe had this been made six or seven years later, it could have turned out better with Spencer being more at the center of it all. I mean the two we have here play characters stranded on an island in another fun film for example. But enough about them now. Let's have a look at the rest of the cast. I cannot say too much about them though. Silvia Monti looked pretty stunning in here and also telling that she played a vital character with an amount of story and screen time that women simply did not get during later Spencer/Hill films. George Martin is still alive in 2021 and he also used an American-sounding alias here just like the two superstars. His career, however, ended less than five years after this film. Maybe it was not the range he lacked, but the recognition value. Sal Borgese has been in other Spencer/Hill movies later on, always a welcome addition.
Alright, so I must say the story never had me even close to the edge of my seat here. This was a pity. There were some familiar elements like brawls, but even those were not that funny and the slightly more dramatic plot twists they were going for did not feel like they had a lot of impact unfortunately. Like for example, very early on, actually it was the first shot I think, we see corpses hanging and they were executed. This is never a 100% dramatic or dangerous movie and that is a good thing. On several occasions, you could see that it did not take itself particularly seriously and this was always when it got a little better, but also not too close to a level where I would have given an additional two stars and this a positive recommendation. The sets and costumes are alright in my opinion. Could have been a lot worse and the sea is always nice to watch honestly. I will not deny that this film here and there felt a bit like a really early version of a "Pirates of the Caribbean" film as those movies, as you all know I'm sure, also do not take themselves too seriously at times, especially with Jack Sparrow's shenanigans. But back to this one here: The music is alright too. There is not one production area that truly stands out, but most of them are at least tolerable I would say. Another parallel from Hill's perspective is that he also had a romance story going on here and he frequently does in those later Spencer/Hill movies. But this is at the same time a difference too because in those future films said romance was always kept really basic, while here it is definitely a key aspect of the story. Maybe even the center of the entire film. Other than that, it is about the usual you see in these films linked to pirates: danger, betrayal and gold of course. Some other subjects too. The fact that this is a Spanish co-production probably has mostly to do with the fact of the Spanish people and colony in this film. I must say though that the title with the mention of this legendary protagonist sounds much more interesting than he turned out to be in this movie. I would not blame Hill for that though. He is a decent actor, even if this may not be his greatest perfomance either. The script is the much bigger issue for sure. And I know that the reference of the color black here is mostly for the clothes the character is wearing, but maybe a guy who is really the epitome of a light-haired and blue-eyed Italian was not the very greatest choice. No surprise though with these blue eyes, the girls were constantly falling for him. At least in the movies. In real life, Hill/Girotti has been with only one woman almost and that is really sweet. When this film was made, they were already married for a few years and they still are today and it's been over half a century now that they are together. Pretty sweet. Would be beautiful if they make it to 60. Okay, I am really drifting away now, but I guess some little snippets of background information are not gonna hurt anybody, especially if we have some harmony as a contrast to this short-lived world of pirates here, even if not as many people die in this film as one would imagine. Maybe they really wanted to keep it mostly family-friendly. Oh, I mentioned the corpses early on already and this reminds me now of another parallel to Pirates of the Caribbean where one movie starts with a spectacular hanging scene too and if that one is family-friendly, then this one here is definitely as well. We do not see them being killed, we just see their bodies hanging. Alright, overall an easy decision for me here. This film is not a failure, but also not as good as it needed to be for a positive recommendation. Probably closer to the latter though, so if you are a Hill/Spencer completionist, you can check it out, but otherwise, there are at least a dozen, probably two dozens, of movies starring this legendary duo that you should see before this one here. The low amount of votes is telling enough and also that this is of course not yet a film that won the German Screen like many other Bud Spencer films afterwards. My suggestion is to skip "Il corsaro nero". Thumbs-down. It's still good this film got made because it was perhaps vital on the path to leading Spencer and Hill to those films and projects where they really fully delivered and made me and millions of others laugh so hard. From this perspective alone it is good this got made. Trial and error you know.
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