the Dalaverse

I don't care how people mock Spielberg for it, I will always love "Hook."

Have I mentioned that I'm writing my final paper for Film on...pirate movies?

Flist: Oooooh!
Dala: I know!
(You have to picture this exchange as an interaction between Hilby the Skinny German Juggling Boy and his audience at the MD Renaissance Faire. Hilby will explain some complicated and/or dangerous trick he's about to do, the audience will make a collective appreciative noise, and Hilby will reply in his skinny German juggling accent "I know!" So that's what we were doing there.)

This is my tentative outline and thesis (it's due next Monday, which means I'll write it next weekend). I'm starting with "The Black Pirate" (Douglas Fairbanks, 1926), "The Sea Hawk" (Errol Flynn, 1940) and especially "Captain Blood" (Flynn, 1935), and how the romantic swashbuckling pirate hero appealed to Depression audiences. Then that need passed and the pirate was kind of lost in the realm of comedy, parody, and children's movies ("The Crimson Pirate," Burt Lancaster, 1952; "The Pirate Movie," nonfamous people, 1982; "Yellowbeard," the Python gang, 1983; "Cutthroat Island," Geena Davis, 1995 [a commercial flop, I think, which supports my thesis]; to some degree "The Princess Bride," "The Goonies," and "Hook"). At long last, the PotC franchise was able to revive the genre as a straight-up action flick. I am still not quite sure why this is, historically, but I'm going to have a damned good time detailing the changes made to female roles (our Elizabeth! Our Anamaria! Maybe even our Tia Dalma!), the pirate hero (our Jack!) and such. I left out the "Treasure Island" movies because there have been, like, one per decade and they could have their own paper (I might mention the 1952 version -- the classic -- except it doesn't really fit, anyway, because I'm dealing with the pirate as romantic hero).

The paper subject is how a genre/series/sometimes a star or director (if they've undergone significant changes) evolves over at least three decades, using at least one movie per decade. As you can see, I plan to go above and beyond. I was sorely tempted by "The Wizard of Oz" (the '20s silent version, the WoO -- hee -- "The Wiz," "Return to Oz," the recent Muppets version), but in the end? Pirates won out. I'm sure you are all so surprised.

"Peter, you've become a pirate." LOVE.


ETA: Aww, Jack Palance died. "City Slickers" is another one of my childhood favorites. RIP Curly.

ETA again: Glenn Close in pirate drag is hands down the BEST cameo ever.