good back-story, and good acting

Expected more

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

For years before becoming an actor, Burt Lancaster was a circus acrobat along with his best friend Nick Cravat, (who plays Ojo in the Crimson Pirate). The acrobatics in this film are truly amazing.

An enjoyable, if at times, silly swashbuckler featuring once again Burt Lancaster in the energetic title role and his diminutive but equally all-action if non-speaking sidekick Nick Cravat. I say silly because at different times the pair hook up with a gentleman scientist who invents the hot-air balloon, flame-thrower, airship and just for good mention TNT, years before their time not to mention the three of them later dressing up as women to foil the nasty British governor's nefarious plans to tyrannise the locals.It's all very bright and colourful, with all the action, fighting and piratical clichés you can shiver your timbers at. Lancaster gets to jut out his chin and chest in between all his acrobatics, finding time in between to romance Eva Bartok as the native rebel-leader's daughter. Burt doesn't have his troubles to seek, as besides the double-dealing British, he has to contend with mutiny amongst his own men who are more interested in plunder and booty than regime change for the good of the local community, but it all works out in the end as you'd expect.Lancaster and Cravat get up to all sorts of high-jinks in an extended chase sequence at the start, a comedic impersonation of the governor plus one at a grand ball with Cravat updating (or should that be back-dating?) Harpo Marx's impishness with the gentry and of course a battle royal with all and sundry at the end.I've read that Lancaster and his production company were perhaps attempting some indirect political comment against the McCarthy witch hunt in Hollywood at the time with this tale of the oppressed underdog triumphing against the powers that be but that looks like a bit of a stretch to me.Better then just to admire the bright colours, acrobatic feats and romantic intrigue along the way, without over-analysing it, suspending some disbelief along the way.

"The Crimson Pirate" is a swashbuckling adventure film which has much in common with "The Flame and the Arrow" from two years earlier. Both have a historical setting and star Burt Lancaster as the leader of a group of freedom fighters. Both films allow Lancaster to show off his skills as an acrobat (before becoming an actor he worked in a circus) and also co- star his close friend and former circus partner Nick Cravat. In both films Cravat's character is mute, although he himself was perfectly able to speak; apparently the reason was that he had a strong Brooklyn accent which the producers felt was inappropriate in a historical drama. Someone should have told the producers that any American accent- not just a Brooklyn one- would have been anachronistic in 12th century Italy, and there is no reason why a New Yorker should not have served on an 18th century pirate ship. The film is set in the Caribbean some time the 18th century. (Don't ask exactly when; this is not a film which places a high value on historical accuracy). Lancaster plays the pirate chief Captain Vallo, known as "The Crimson Pirate". He and his crew become involved with a rebellion on the fictional island of Cobra against the tyrannical rule of the King of Spain and his special envoy Baron Gruda who has been ordered to crush the rebels. Vallo also becomes romantically involved with Consuelo, the beautiful daughter of the leader of the rebels. The plot, in fact, is rather more complicated than that brief summary might suggest; Vallo starts off as a cynical double-dealer, playing Gruda and the rebels off against one another in the hope of maximising his profits, but eventually throws his lot in with the rebel cause, motivated partly by idealism and partly by love for Consuelo. There is also a sub-plot about Vallo's treacherous first mate, Humble Bellows, who is plotting to depose him as pirate captain. (For some reason Bellows always speaks a pseudo-archaic dialect, referring to everyone as "thee" and "thou", although he often gets it wrong; "thee be" instead of "thou art"). The film, however, doesn't really do plot any more than it does historical realism. The story is little more than an excuse for some spectacular (at least by the standards of the early fifties) action sequences and plenty of acrobatic derring-do from Lancaster and Cravat, who plays Vallo's lieutenant Ojo. Vallo, his men and the rebels are eventually enabled to defeat the government forces because a brilliant scientist puts at their disposal not only a hydrogen balloon (possible within the time-frame of the movie, given that the first such balloons appeared in the 1780s) but also, anachronistically, inventions such as nitroglycerine (discovered 1847), a flamethrower (first used in World War I) and a tank (ditto). I was surprised to discover that the film was directed by Robert Siodmak, as I had always associated him with more serious fare such as "The Killers" (which also starred Lancaster) and "The Spiral Staircase". He was clearly a versatile director, but on the basis of this film swashbuckling adventure does not seem to have been his strong suit. "The Flame and the Arrow" may have its weaknesses, but at least it has something approaching a coherent plot and does not descend into silliness in the way that "The Crimson Pirate" tends to, frequently abandoning both coherence and credibility, generally in order to introduce some more circus stunts from Vallo and Ojo. The denouement is something of a cheat; the heroes in a historic adventure film ought to defeat the villains by being stronger, braver or more resourceful, not by suddenly having modern weapons placed at their disposal. In the early part of his career, Burt Lancaster was sometimes dismissed as "Mr Muscles and Teeth", although this seems unfair as even in his early days he was capable of producing fine performances in serious films like "The Killers" or "From here to Eternity". "The Crimson Pirate", however, is very much one of his "muscles and teeth" films, making demands upon his athletic abilities but far fewer on his acting ones, except perhaps the ability to grin occasionally. 5/10

An early, light-hearted attempt to poke fun at the pirate genre from within. Burt Lancaster plays the title character, a typical charming scoundrel pirate named Vallo, who decides to try his hand at business when he agrees to exchange a freedom fighter, El Libre, for guns, but his plan goes horribly awry when he falls in love with El Libre's beautiful daughter (Eva Bartok). Before long, Vallo's up to his neck in trouble when his own crew turns against him, save for his loyal sidekick/first mate Ojo (Lancaster's real life friend Nick Cravat, playing it mute because of his accent), exile him with an up and coming scientist, with the daughter in danger of being married off to an evil tyrant. And it's up to Vallo to rescue his lady love in conjunction with saving his crew... and wearing red & white striped pants while doing it.Funny, flamboyant flick with Lancaster having fun - or at least pretending to be having fun - as the rascal pirate.The scene with Lancaster and his cronies walking on the ocean floor with the row boat over their heads would later be referenced in 2003's summer block buster "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl".