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player ready...Johnny Depp’s famously seductive pirate, Capt. Jack Sparrow, follows in the footsteps of some great movie buccaneers of the past. Here are five:
ERROL FLYNN as Dr. Peter Blood in “Captain Blood” (1935, left) and as Geoffrey Thorpe in “The Sea Hawk” (1940). No movie adventurer had more dash and flair than Flynn, who was something of a sexual pirate himself. (“In like Flynn” was an erotic catchphrase of the ’40s.)
BURT LANCASTER as Capt. Vallo in “The Crimson Pirate” (1952). One-time professional acrobat Lancaster could swashbuckle like nobody else, and he had a true pirate’s grin. His “Crimson pirate” is one of the great ’50s adventure movie sleepers.
DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS (Sr.) as the Black Pirate in “The Black Pirate” (1926). The great-granddaddy of all movie buccaneers, musketeers and swashbucklers was Doug Fairbanks, here at his pirate peak.
ROBERT NEWTON as Long John Silver in “Treasure Island” (1950) and “Long John Silver” (1955, above). Almost all pirate parodies borrow something from Newton’s scenery-chewing performance as Robert Louis Stevenson’s famed hambone buccaneer. Aaaaarrrrrggg!
GENE KELLY as Serafin, alias pirate Macoco or “Mack the Black,” in “The Pirate” (1948). To win damsel Judy Garland’s heart, Kelly does his wondrous musical Doug Fairbanks impersonation; Garland, unknowingly, is married to the real Macoco, Don Pedro Vargas (Walter Slezak).
— Michael Wilmington