Pirates Of Capri: Edgar G. Ulmer Collection #4

Rating:
Summary: Louis Hayward as Captain Sirocco is superb!
Review: I saw this movie about 45 years ago, when I was a kid. Finally we are able once again to enjoy the ultimate in swashbuckling heros and his display of the most dramatic sword fighting ever! We have here Captain Sirocco, a masked swarshbuckling swordsman who simultaneously precipitates a revolution against a tyrannical chief of police and saves the queen (played by Binnie Barnes), who happens to be the sister of Marie Antoinette. Hayward, is a foppish sisified dandy dressed in glitter and powdered wig, who is the queen's poet. He is also a bold, fierce zorro - like hero loved by the poor who is helping them to throw off the yoke of tyranny imposed by the royalty and enforced by evil chief of police who has also sheltered the queen from knowing the awful truth about the condition of the poor and their rage at their pitiful lives. He has also murdered Sirocco's brother. The beautiful Mariella Lotti, (introduced in this movie) plays Hayward's betrothed who is supposed to marry the fop but is in love with the dashing hero, both of who are the same man with a secret identity. Louis Hayward's swordsmanship is amazing. He is by far the best screen actor of his time for this kind of role. He blows away Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, et al, who can't hold a candle to his sense of timing, his flamboyance and flash. If you like the gusto with which Antonio Banderas played Zorro recently, you will love Hayward. True, the story is so so, but the sound track and the way Hayward completely commands this movie makes it a one of a kind fun movie. WHy, you might even take up fencing when you see it. Here is hoping that the rest of this great actor's work is made available to us...