Although it's not often recognised as such, the swashbuckler is itself like a little genre of classic Hollywood. Not nearly as prolific as, say, the Western or the gangster movie, but nevertheless possessing certain recurring features, conventions and even actors that make it more recognisable than simply another kind of historical movie. In the genre's heyday (roughly 1935 – 1943) the undisputed king of swashbuckling was Errol Flynn of Warner Brothers, but studios would often compete with each other star-for-star, and Fox Studios gave Flynn his toughest competition in the form of Tyrone Power.
One of the conventions of the classic swashbuckler is, sadly, the incredibly misogynistic approach to romantic subplot, which is quite startling even by the standards of the day. Over at Warner Brothers Errol Flynn would all but kidnap his unwilling intended (usually the daughter or niece of the villain – e.g. a piece of treasure to be won) until she finally gave in and realised that, all along, she was into biastophilia. For The Black Swan however this goes to a whole new level, removing the words "all but" from the previous sentence for one thing. Leading lady Maureen O'Hara is slapped, threatened with swords and eventually bound hand and foot by a lecherous Power. That's not to mention other creepy behaviour such as wandering around her room sniffing her possessions. All that can be said of this in mitigation is that Tyrone Power is of course exceptionally handsome (the moustache he sports here cancelling out his thick eyebrows) and the fact that, when he gets going, the villain played by George Sanders is in fact even creepier. But that doesn't really make it alright.
Handsome as he is, Tyrone Power is not an amazing actor. He does however have that ability to look poetically dashing in a bare chest and bandana, which is pretty much all your swashbuckling hero needs, and the effectiveness of it for the movie should not be underestimated. But what's really fun to watch here is the battle of the booming theatricals. I'm talking about big Laird McCregan, sounding suitably Welsh for Captain Morgan and swaggering about like a rotund Shakespearean, versus booable, hissable George Sanders, giving a credible baddie pirate performance from the days before Robert Newton made us think they all came from Cornwall. These two should have been given more scenes together. Also good fun to see is Thomas Mitchell in an Alan Hale-type sidekick role.
The best things about The Black Swan really are in its technical construction. The cinematography by Leon Shamroy is breathtaking, weaving layers of light and shadow in a way that is normally associated with monochrome but that works here in Technicolor. The director is Henry King, who of all the American-born directors in Hollywood at the time was one of the few to emphasise sets and settings as the European émigrés did. But King's shots are not oppressive and claustrophobic as, say, Michael Curtiz's or Fritz Langs. Take for example that series of outdoor scenes when Power is "courting" O'Hara. He tightly encloses the shots with trees pressing in on all sides, but by the way they are lit and arranged he gives the scenery a beautiful and very characteristic feel. Another trick of King's is to use lines of people in a v-formation to draw your eye in on a focal point. You can see an example of this in the torture rack scene.
And style over substance does count for something. After all this is a genre movie. But one can't help but feeling that The Black Swan is merely ticking swashbuckler boxes and perhaps trying just a little too hard, without enough extra business to really keep the viewer interested. Yes, Powers was the right star for the job, yes it's nicely shot, but it is simply lacking in the spirit of fun and adventure that really makes the swashbuckler what it should be.
One of the conventions of the classic swashbuckler is, sadly, the incredibly misogynistic approach to romantic subplot, which is quite startling even by the standards of the day. Over at Warner Brothers Errol Flynn would all but kidnap his unwilling intended (usually the daughter or niece of the villain – e.g. a piece of treasure to be won) until she finally gave in and realised that, all along, she was into biastophilia. For The Black Swan however this goes to a whole new level, removing the words "all but" from the previous sentence for one thing. Leading lady Maureen O'Hara is slapped, threatened with swords and eventually bound hand and foot by a lecherous Power. That's not to mention other creepy behaviour such as wandering around her room sniffing her possessions. All that can be said of this in mitigation is that Tyrone Power is of course exceptionally handsome (the moustache he sports here cancelling out his thick eyebrows) and the fact that, when he gets going, the villain played by George Sanders is in fact even creepier. But that doesn't really make it alright.
Handsome as he is, Tyrone Power is not an amazing actor. He does however have that ability to look poetically dashing in a bare chest and bandana, which is pretty much all your swashbuckling hero needs, and the effectiveness of it for the movie should not be underestimated. But what's really fun to watch here is the battle of the booming theatricals. I'm talking about big Laird McCregan, sounding suitably Welsh for Captain Morgan and swaggering about like a rotund Shakespearean, versus booable, hissable George Sanders, giving a credible baddie pirate performance from the days before Robert Newton made us think they all came from Cornwall. These two should have been given more scenes together. Also good fun to see is Thomas Mitchell in an Alan Hale-type sidekick role.
The best things about The Black Swan really are in its technical construction. The cinematography by Leon Shamroy is breathtaking, weaving layers of light and shadow in a way that is normally associated with monochrome but that works here in Technicolor. The director is Henry King, who of all the American-born directors in Hollywood at the time was one of the few to emphasise sets and settings as the European émigrés did. But King's shots are not oppressive and claustrophobic as, say, Michael Curtiz's or Fritz Langs. Take for example that series of outdoor scenes when Power is "courting" O'Hara. He tightly encloses the shots with trees pressing in on all sides, but by the way they are lit and arranged he gives the scenery a beautiful and very characteristic feel. Another trick of King's is to use lines of people in a v-formation to draw your eye in on a focal point. You can see an example of this in the torture rack scene.
And style over substance does count for something. After all this is a genre movie. But one can't help but feeling that The Black Swan is merely ticking swashbuckler boxes and perhaps trying just a little too hard, without enough extra business to really keep the viewer interested. Yes, Powers was the right star for the job, yes it's nicely shot, but it is simply lacking in the spirit of fun and adventure that really makes the swashbuckler what it should be.