Anne of the Indies (1951)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

This story will likely keep you entertained throughout, with occasional action events, and complex interpersonal relationships, not to mention a bombastic Blackbeard. Like Maureen O'Hara, in 1952's "Against All Flags", 25yo Jean Peters was privileged to star as a woman pirate captain, thus achieving the fantasy of a woman ordering a sizable group of men about. Both developed credible skill with a rapier, which added credence to their position. In Jean's case, she duels with Blackbeard(Thomas Gomez)) in a semi-friendly bout, then engages in serious bouts. Clearly, Jean, as Captain Anne Providence, is enjoying her role, putting her all into it....As the story unfolds, Anne hates anything British, blaming them for killing her brother, who, like her, had been nurtured by a young Blackbeard. Now, she was feared nearly as much as Blackbeard. Soon, she sinks a British ship, making the crew walk the plank, all except a handsome Frenchman , whom she calls 'Frenchie'(Louis Jordan), to whom she gives the option of joining her crew or walking the plank. She treats him with some suspicion at first, but gradually warms up to him, and eventually they engage in a passionate kiss or two, something she's presumably never done before with a crew member. But, then she would have him flogged at one point. Later, she would discover that Frenchie had a beautiful wife(Debra Paget, as Molly) housed in Port Royal, and that he was actually a spy for the British, who had impounded his ship and wouldn't give it back until he captured either Anne or Blackbeard. Anne captured Molly , and threatened to throw her to her crew, or sell her into white slavery. But before all this happened, she had defended Frenchie(Captain La Rochelle) from attack by Blackbeard, who claimed he was an ex-captain, and a spy. She made Blackbeard and his small crew leave the island. Blackbeard would get his revenge in the end. So now, Anne has the British, Frenchie, and Blackbeard all out to get her. Eventually, she captures Frenchie, and maroons him with his wife on a very small island, hoping they will starve or die of thirst. Then, she has a change of heart, returns and gives them a small boat. This proves her downfall, as Blackbeard is closing in. After losing Frenchie and Blackbeard as friends or lovers, Anne seems to have no close friends, male or female. She despises the wenches who provide comfort to the pirates and others in the few towns. She also despises kept ladies, such as Molly. She apparently only respected women, like herself, who had earned the status of being a leader in the outside world , or had mastered a complex job normally done by men. She had earned her exalted status, despite being functionally illiterate, as most women of that time were. Check out YouTube to see it.

Good-looking women pirates is probably one of those juvenile male dreams, like good-looking women burglars. That a good-looking woman would stand much chance among the scurvy cut-throats who make up the crew of a pirate ship is beyond plausibility.(I think in particular of a generically named movie, "Swashbuckler" (1978), in which a good-looking woman played by Genevieve Bujold just nonchalantly doffs her clothes and jumps into the Caribbean -- not to escape, but just for a swim! Reality does not often intrude in movies about women and pirates.)However, though women don't generally get much better-looking than Jean Peters, she came across as believable ordering men into battle and swinging a sword herself.In fact, though maybe I'm not a good judge, I thought she looked fearsome dueling with sailors and pirates. Supposedly Basil Rathbone was at least one of the best fencers in Hollywood, if not the best, and I felt she could have taken him on.Watching her incredibly expressive face, especially during the fight scenes, is the best part of viewing "Anne of the Indies." She struck me, in fact, as one of the best actresses I have ever had the pleasure of watching, and certainly the best woman pirate -- taking nothing away from any of the others.She was ably assisted by a superlative cast, including Herbert Marshall playing the only really sympathetic character.But James Robertson Justice did shine as the right-hand man. Thomas Gomez, usually so good in anything, was terribly over-weight to be Blackbeard but still seemed suitably scary.Louis Jourdan was so cool and collected, so at home in his role, he almost blended into the background -- which might be a sign of great talent.One of my personal favorites is Sean McGlory, whom I interviewed after his stage appearance in an Oscar Wilde play. He doesn't appear in "Anne of the Indies" until fairly late but just grabs a viewer's attention.I think the ending was rather weak, and even disappointing, but every part is so well played, and the effects were so nearly perfect, I can rate the move very good over all.I highly recommend "Anne of the Indies" if only for the joy and pleasure in watching Jean Peters and the admiration her performance will inspire.

This is the sort of thing that the studios were experts in grinding out in the 40s and 50s. The opening credits are flung across the screen in huge crimson letters. The musical score, by Franz Waxman, resembles on a lower plane the exquisite bombast of Eric Wolfgang Korngold, who was referred to by one of his detractors as Wolfgang von Korngold.That fact is only worth mentioning in passing but so is this entire movie. I liked it, especially when I saw it as a child in the Mayfair Theater in Hillside, New Jersey. I thrilled at the boom of the cannon, shivered when a protagonist was threatened with death by cutlass, chuckled when Thomas Gomez as Blackbeard swilled wine and overturned wooden tables, and stirred in my seat when the pale, prim, innocent Debra Paget was thrown into Captain Paradise's cabin with her dress half torn off.That particular incident went nowhere because the captain was Anne of the Indies, Jean Peters. As the stern, scowling pirate captain, Peters, I think all of us must admit, was a little butch but she was heterosexual. She proved that when she made chaste love to her prisoner, played by the handsome, suave, organically grown Frenchman, Louis Jourdan. That lovemaking wouldn't be so pure in one of today's movies. And I'm not so sure that Debra Paget would have remained unscathed.The plot. Some nonsense about rivalries and possessions and revenge involving Peters, Gomez, and Jourdan. Peters, having discovered that Jourdan and Paget are married, is convulsed with rage and jealousy. She maroons the two of them on one of those desert islands with nothing but sand and she sneers as she describes the horrible deaths they will suffer because they have no food or water. Actually, I think if they dug deep enough they'd find a fresh water lens. I don't know about the food situation. The best they could hope for would be crude versions of moules mariniere or zarzuela de mariscos.Jean Peters plays the role of the unlettered Pirate Queen in a blunt and one-dimensional fashion. She was really good in Sam Fuller's "Pickup On South Street." Louis Jourdan is too debonair for me. I suspect he wins a lot of good-looking women just because of his French accent. Fine for him, but what about the rest of us? Thomas Gomez is fine as the blustering, uninhibited, proudful Blackbeard. He looks as if he's wearing a fat suit. I met him in a now defunct San Francisco night club called Finnochio's. Debra Paget has very little to do except look distressed.

I'm not quite sure what Jean Peters did in her life to warrant getting cast in Anne of the Indies. I thought being married to Howard Hughes she would have been able to get her pick of parts. Unless of course her eccentric husband was doing the casting.As Anne Provedence, protégé of Blackbeard, and captain of her own crew of pirates she's one nasty lady to cross. But along comes Louis Jourdan who's spying for the British who are hoping to get rid of this she devil of the seas. Jourdan as Captain LaRochelle is not expecting a woman, but he switches gears and romances her. He's certainly a better looking male specimen than any of her crew. What's a girl to do.But Jourdan also has a wife, a real girly girl Debra Paget. That really tangles things up.You'd like to say that Anne of the Indies was some kind of a harbinger of films about liberated women, but it ain't. It's a muddled mess with the cast going through the motions and looking like they'd rather be just about anywhere else.Who knows, maybe this thing was something from the brain of Howard Hughes as he was entering his reclusive stage.