Il corsaro nero

One hesitates to pass judgment on a movie which, in the English-language videotape, has obviously gone through a lot of clumsy re-editing and re-dubbing. Still, it's all we have to judge it by and so the truth must be told: this movie makes virtually no sense at all. The plot has something to do with a shipment of gold which the Viceroy at Guayaquil wants to send back to Spain. A loose confederation of pirate captains has other ideas, as does the Viceroy's beautiful and ambitious wife. Any attempt to clarify the plot beyond these elements will be met with frustration.

That said, the movie retains an amiable quality, is never out and out dull, and has an attractive cast. It's best viewed as an "In-Flight" feature -- one of those things you don't expect much of and which you halfway watch out of the corner of your eye while you're doing something else.

The highlight, (such as it is), may come when Edmund Purdom walks into a room and finds a shirtless Terence Hill tied to a wall, several bloody whip marks on his back. One can't help recalling at this moment that Purdom himself felt the sting of a whip back in MGM's 1954 spectacle, "The Prodigal"