The Black Pirate (1971) (aka Blackie The Pirate) starring Terence Hill, Silvia Monti, George Martin, Diana Lorys directed by Lorenzo Gicca Palli Movie Review

The Black Pirate (1971)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Terence Hill in The Black Pirate (1971) (aka Blackie The Pirate)

All At Sea

Blackie the Pirate (Terence Hill) learns from an encounter with Don Pedro (George Martin) of a shipment of gold and tries to devise a plan to find the ship and gold. His plan leads him to a settlement of pirates where he buys a slave which just happens to be the wife of the vice roy of the Spanish colony. But Blackie's purchase doesn't go unnoticed by rival pirate Skull (Bud Spencer) who sets about stealing her.

With Terence Hill and Bud Spencer starring as pirates you might be tempted to call "The Black Pirate" a spaghetti swashbuckler but that would be over generous as in reality it is just a 1970s movie which sees two stars of Italian westerns taking on the pirate genre. And sadly the end result is not that good with a dull script which meanders along pepped up by the occasional moment of action or attractive women dancing. But it is completely devoid of style which makes it a real struggle from start to finish.

For a movie which says it is a comedy it has to be said that "The Black Pirate" is remarkably unfunny. Of course the humour may be of the unintentional variety as "The Black Pirate" has all the usual traits of a 1970's Italian movie; poor dubbing, poor editing, and plenty of over acting. Even the action sequences, the sword fights and so on come across as comically bad in their attempts to imitate the smoothness of the swashbucklers of Hollywood's golden era.

What this all boils down to is that "The Black Pirate", named such because of his clothes, is really an incredibly weak movie which struggles when it comes to the comedy, action and adventure. Maybe devotees of 70s Italian cinema will enjoy it but for anyone else it is hard work.


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