Coming quite late in the costume adventure cycle popular in Italian cinema during the late 1950s and early '60s, The Masked Man Against the Pirates stars the ubiquitous George Hilton as Suarez, a noble buccaneer plying his dishonest trade on the high seas. When his ship captures a Spanish galleon, he finds his loyalties to Captain Garcia (John Vari) tested by his fondness for part of the booty: icy beauty Princess Anne (Blood and Black Lace's Claude Dantes). Meanwhile, Spanish captain Ruiz (Tony Kendall) is plotting rebellion against his captors, with the help of a mysterious masked man in green. The film has a distinctly Pirates of the Caribbean attitude, with its outrageously clad pirates generally behaving quite well, and there's comic relief in the form of a pirate turned monk who stutters. It's entirely unexceptional, but reasonably entertaining, especially for those of us grew up watching this kind of stuff on the late, late show. IMDb lists a 105 minute running time, but the Greek PAL tape sourced for this review clocks in at a mere 86.
3 Reviews
Superficial charm
Leofwine_draca9 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
More costume adventure from Italy, coming towards the end of that period in 1964 when spaghetti westerns were just beginning to take over in popularity. This one has a youthful George Hilton as a member of a crew of swashbuckling pirates who find themselves tackled by a mysterious masked figure with vengeance in mind. Said figure teams up with the youthfully heroic Tony Kendall for an adventure with plenty of fights, a couple of sea battles adroitly staged on an admittedly low budget, and some romance and subterfuge to boot. It's all very familiar with nothing out of the ordinary, but the Italians were old hands at this kind of thing and it has a kind of superficial charm to it.
Santo Takes to the High Seas
richardchatten30 July 2019
There's more wine, women & song than swordplay in this bargain basement pirate adventure whose title already betrays it's conclusion as it mixes genres with the introduction of a masked avenger in tights who proves to be more than a mere rumour to join forces with Tony Kendall to see off rascally Captain Garcia and his crew of cutthroats
Perhaps because they were making it up as they went along there are - as seems to be the case with most cheap swashbucklers - an awful lot of writers credited with the script. On this occasion the total is four, including director Vertunnio DeAngelis, whose budget presumably didn't extend to a continuity girl to point out the frequent disconcerting shifts within scenes between night and day.
No prizes for guessing who the man in the mask turns out to be. Claude Dantes as the princess held captive wears a long wig that renders her unrecognisable as the pixie-haired victim found dead in the bath tub in 'Blood and Black Lace'.
Perhaps because they were making it up as they went along there are - as seems to be the case with most cheap swashbucklers - an awful lot of writers credited with the script. On this occasion the total is four, including director Vertunnio DeAngelis, whose budget presumably didn't extend to a continuity girl to point out the frequent disconcerting shifts within scenes between night and day.
No prizes for guessing who the man in the mask turns out to be. Claude Dantes as the princess held captive wears a long wig that renders her unrecognisable as the pixie-haired victim found dead in the bath tub in 'Blood and Black Lace'.
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