Swashbuckler (film)
| Swashbuckler | |
|---|---|
original film poster by John Solie
|
|
| Directed by | James Goldstone |
| Produced by |
Elliott Kastner Jennings Lang William S. Gilmore |
| Written by | Paul Wheeler |
| Screenplay by | Jeffrey Bloom |
| Starring |
Robert Shaw James Earl Jones Peter Boyle Geneviève Bujold Beau Bridges Geoffrey Holder |
| Music by | John Addison |
| Cinematography | Philip H. Lathrop |
| Edited by | Edward A. Biery |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
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Release date
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July 29, 1976 |
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Running time
|
101 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $8 million |
Swashbuckler is a romantic adventure film produced in the U.S. by Universal Studios and released in 1976. The film is based on the story “The Scarlet Buccaneer”, written by Paul Wheeler and adapted for the screen by Jeffrey Bloom. It was directed by James Goldstone and was rated PG.
The movie was released in the UK as The Scarlet Buccaneer.
In Jamaica in 1718, a band of pirates led by Captain “Red” Ned Lynch oppose a greedy overlord, the evil Lord Durant. Durant has ruthlessly imprisoned his Lord High Justice and mercilessly evicted the judge's wife and daughter. The daughter, Jane Barnet, attempts a rescue with Lynch’s help.
(in order of credits)
Pirate movies had gone out of fashion with major Hollywood studios since the 1950s, due in part to high cost. The success of The Three Musketeers (1973) showed there was still an appetite for swashbucklers, so original producer Eliot Kastner prepared a pirate script where most of the action took place on shore.
"It was prepared to avoid all the hazards of filming on water and it could have been inexpensively made," said co-producer Jennings Lang. "But we decided that it would be cheating the public to do a pirate movie without boats, that would not be using the basic material."
Anjelica Huston was cast for her role over Martine Beswicke and Barbara Steele. Robert Morgan, a stuntman who lost his leg making How the West Was Won (1963), played a one-legged pirate.
The working title for the film was Swashbuckler, which was changed during production to The Blarney Cock. "We want to avoid the movie being considered a kid's picture," said Lang. ""We wanted a title that is arresting to adults as well as kids. This ship in the movie is called "The Blarney Cock", so we decided to make use of that name as the title."
Before release, however, Universal had a change of heart about the suggestive nature of the title and it was reverted to Swashbuckler.
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