The Big Whatsit

As though suggesting Hammer spread a few good ideas across a wide canvas, it’s a little unfortunate that The Devil Ship Pirates comes as part of the Icons of Adventure package, which also contains Pirates of Blood River. Both titles are so similar in tone and plot that it’s occasionally difficult to set them apart. Blood River was first, and a big enough hit for the studio to tap a similar vein two years later. Devil Ship features many of the same actors, locations and props as its forerunner. Christopher Lee returns as the venomous pirate captain; his crew feature some of the same faces, including - yes! - Michael Ripper as a fun-loving seadog who looks as though he’s had one visit too many to his local Tantastic. The story - again from the quick-firing pen of Jimmy Sangster - is reminiscent, in that it’s basically about pirates invading a peace-loving, remote community and occupying it. It’s a more polished effort than Blood River. Money has clearly been spent on it, not least on its lavish costumes. But does that make it a better movie?

The biggest difference between the two movies comes early, when we see that Hammer’s elders clubbed together and invested in a ship for their pirate hordes. ‘El Diablo’ doesn’t appear too often; sadly, its main purpose is to be grounded as the occupants go off on another land-based adventure. But it’s there, and it looks good, certainly in the opening scenes as it finds itself a not altogether willing participant in the Spanish Armada’s attempt to invade England. Seeing that the battle is lost, Captain Robeles (Lee) and his crew prepare to leave, much to the chagrin of the Spanish captain assigned to the vessel. He’s quickly done in, Robeles taking his crew of privateers to an inlet on the English south coast. By chance, the pirates make themselves known to the local village. Don Manuel Rodriguez de Savilla (Barry Warren), another Spanish military man serving on the ship thinks on his feet, telling the people that Spain have won the war and their soldiers are moving in.

The villagers are too cut off to know whether this is true, but at the behest of Sir Basil Smeeton (Ernest Clark) are told to welcome their swarthy captors, all in the name of peace. Fortunately, not everyone is so blindly trusting. Several of the locals (led by Andrew Keir and Philip Latham) are suspicious, and make their own efforts to ascertain what’s going on. There’s also John Cairney (best known in this house for his laid back performance in Jason and the Argonauts) as Harry, the village firebrand. He’s got a dodgy hand, and he’s been a prisoner of the Spaniards in the past. His hatred of all things Iberian suggests that something horrible happened to him during those times, and makes him a natural leader in the growing unrest as Robeles haughtily co-opts the village into repairing the ship. Suzan Farmer appears as Smeeton’s daughter, giving her an early opportunity to be menaced in a movie role by Lee (she later stars in Dracula: Prince of Darkness).

Within the pirate ranks are the usual mob of happy go lucky rogues, in love with life and donning fake tan to make them look a bit more Spanish. In reality, they’re all regulars to the Hammer troupe of extras, though it’s worth looking out for a young Johnny Briggs, who was later immortalised as the appropriately ‘wide boy’ Mike Baldwin in Coronation Street. Duncan Lamont plays the Bosun, devoted to Captain Robeles yet utterly disdainful whenever Don Manuel is attempting to dish out orders. The latter is wonderfully played by Warren. Previously, you would have seen him as a rather nasty and scornful bloodsucker in Kiss of the Vampire, but it’s here that he excels. Warren bears a passing resemblance to Daniel Craig, looks good with a rapier and is totally convincing as the one Spaniard who isn’t in tune with Robeles’s schemes. Over the course of the movie, his role is decisive and works because the actor gives good smoulder.

With only Cairney, and a plucky performance from Natasha Pyne as a captured local girl to represent the local resistance, this is Lee’s film entirely. Freed from having to affect a French accent and given more to do, he’s a captivating screen villain. Every other line he come out with is a threat, barked out in the sort of way that makes clear he means exactly what he’s saying. More than once, he menaces people with the prospect of having their tongues cut out, indeed he offers to do the job personally, and coming from him it never sounds like idle bravado. His absolute scorn for Sir Basil is another delight, as is his martial treatment of any villagers he comes across who aren’t in tune with his plans. Poor Andrew Keir once again comes a cropper at Lee’s hands in Devil Ship Pirates, just like he did in Blood River. Little wonder he goes to town on revenging himself in Dracula: Prince of Darkness, which incidentally also features Latham in the standout role of Klove.

As in Blood River, too much is going on for the plotholes and inconsistencies to become too apparent, though I love the fact that the script doesn’t even try to address the issue of any potential language barrier between the Spaniards and their English captives. More obvious is the lack of character development beyond the principals. In Blood River, Oliver Reed and Peter Arne were prominent amongst the pirate ranks, yet here they’re all minor characters, to a man scurvy seadog ne’er do wells whose interest ends in the nearest flagon of ale and vague promise of doubloons. There’s a cracking fight scene between the brigands, as in the previous movie, and similarly it’s played a little quirkily. Rather than let two scrapping pirates skewer each other with rapiers, Ripper’s Pepe invents a contest where each gets a chance to strike the other until one doesn’t get up. The contest ends when one of the contenders wields a cup for extra ballast, a cheat that actually earns him respect from his comrades. Clearly, in piratedom bending the rules to suit your own ends was completely acceptable and indeed encouraged. This sort of stuff really does write itself, doesn’t it?

Tension in the movie comes from the villagers’ growing realisation that they’re being held prisoner not by representatives of the Spanish Empire but rather a motley gang bent on pursuing their own ends. If this had happened in real life, you imagine the locals would simply help the pirates repair their ship and see them off all the sooner. But not here. In the plucky spirit of The Great Escape, our English forebears set about trying to undermine Robeles, with mixed results and a scene that involves Cairney being flogged for his cheek. All this is played straight, and Lee has the savvy to invest his character with sufficient menace to be worth fearing and nasty enough to oppose. As for the pirates, they spend so much of the film getting drunk on English ale that you might think overcoming them wouldn’t be a tall order. Their sozzled cause isn’t helped by Warren’s spanner in the works, making it clear that things will reach a messy climax, which of course they do.

Far from being one of Hammer’s finest pieces of work, Devil Ship Pirates is extremely good fun and on a par with Blood River. But which is the better movie? Voters at IMDb have given them exactly the same score (5.6 at the time of writing) and it really is impossible to prescribe one as the superior piece of work. Having watched both films twice, the first time I enjoyed Devil Ship more, whilst on the second viewing I found myself getting into Blood River. I even started putting together a list of things I liked especially from both films, as though that was going to provide an answer.

The reality is that they are very similar efforts, with comparatively rousing theme tunes and the same filming locations (Devil Ship’s coastal scenes were shot at Maidenhead, but otherwise the films were entirely Bray-based). It looks as though the later movie had a bit more money spent on it, notably in the addition of a ship, which admittedly looks fantastic but turns out to be superfluous to the action. According to Mondo Hammer’s review of the film, El Diablo cost around £17k to build, only for the model to capsize after being overloaded with equipment. Besides, the extra investment doesn’t make an awful lot of difference. All the fun comes from the daft story, Lee’s glowering turn and usual excellent work done on props, costumes and cinematography, which serve to mask the budget limitations.