Black Pirate (United Artists) (1926)

A Whale of a Special on Old Seafaring Lore Ahoy, the Days When Merchantmen Flaunted Hand Painted Sails and High Gilt Poops! Galleons Which Advertised Themselves to Privateers and Pirates Were Replete with Fascinating Detail. Marine Expert Discusses the Old-Time Ships and the Technical Problems of Preparing a Fairbanks Spectacle 200 Years After The turning to the sea by motion pic¬ ture producers for virile stories has brought into the film world an entirely new type of studio engineer. He is the deep water man, the seafarer who understands the building of ships and how to run them, and his title is “ma¬ rine technician.” Every producer who undertakes to go down to the sea in a can of film, so to speak, must protect himself by en¬ gaging as his life-saver a marine tech¬ nician. The man who acted in this capacity for Douglas Fairbanks during the mak¬ ing of “The Black Pirate,” now the main attraction at the.Theatre, is “Doc” P. H. L. Wilson, one of the best versed nautical men in this coun- try. Under Wilson’s direction, all told l eleven ships or parts of ships were : built, not counting fifteen ’tween decks * interiors and a fleet of twelve small boats. Of the ships built, five were seaworthy, plus the clipper ship, Lle¬ welyn J. Morse, rebuilt for use in the picture. The ships built for "The Black Pi¬ rate” were of the type that graced the days of the Spanish Main. They were rigged by fourteen picked riggers, who followed the type used 200 years ago. However, ship rigging of that time was generally like the rigging of present day sailing craft, differing only in de¬ tails. The principal difference is that ships today employ wire rope, set up by turn- buckles, for their standing rigging, while the ships of yore used very large and heavy hemp rope for shrouds, set up with deadeyes and lanyards. The ultra-modern sailing vessel carries steel masts and spars, as against the wooden equipment of the galleon type. In the earlier form of ships, reproductions of which were used by Fairbanks, the can¬ vas was carried in larger sail areas on fewer yards. It took a great many more men to handle this sort of sail, and it was more readily carried away in stormy weather. “On Doug’s ships,” said Doc Wilson, “we used the tarred hemp of the gal¬ leon era for ratlines (rope ladders on the shrouds to go aloft) instead of the wooden or steel rungs of the present period, and the galleon shrouds were kept in line by fair-lead spreaders and crainlines such as the pirates used. The blocks and tackles of the galleons, al¬ though heavier and larger than modern equipment, were much more artistic in design. All were equipped with wooden sheaves and the entire gear was hand wrought—all of which was duplicated in every detail for Doug.” The complete rig of the galleons shown in “The Black Pirate” was as follows, commencing forward and go¬ ing aft: For headsails, which would corres¬ pond to the jibs and staysails of the present day, these ships carry water- sails and spritsails, all attached to the bowsprit and jibboom, the bowsprit be¬ ing tilted up on a 45-degree rake with an enormous martingale or dolphin- striker below to stay it off. To sheet the headsails, very wide whisker- spreaders were rigged to the bowsprit. The foremast carries a large and dec¬ orative foresail with a deep roach cut in the foot, so that when flying full it clears the extremely high forecastle head. This sail is carried on a yard nearly twice the width of the ship. The foretopsail is carried from a yard on a to’gallant mast, this yard being lowered and raised on rollin’-chalks similar to the present day rigging of royal and skysail yards. The foretopsail as well as the maintopsail each carry a deep roach cut in the foot to clear the fight¬ ing top which surmounts the lower mast, surrounding the doublin’s, where the to’gallant mast is stepped into the lower mast. The mainmast is rigged similarly to the foremast, except that it carries two sails of a much greater area. All sails on ships of galleon times carried decor¬ ations denoting the classification of the ship as to rank and line, says Doc Wil¬ son. The maintopsail bore the coat of arms of the owner or ranking officer in command, while the mainsail mark¬ ings indicated whether the ship was a privateer, a merchantman, or a frigate. The mizzen masts of “The Black Pi¬ rate” ships carry no squaresails. In¬ stead they carry lateen-rigged triangu¬ lar cro-jacks. In place of the fighting tops carried by the foremast and main¬ mast, the mizzen masts carry lookout crow’s nests, where, as in days of old, men were always stationed to safeguard against the approach of an enemy from astern. Although there is a great difference in design between the ships of the era of piracy, and those of the present day, yet the principles of construction are very much the same, all having fol¬ lowed models established by the Norse¬ men, in combination with features of the early Egyptian and Roman ships that cruised the Mediterranean. The stages of progress in shipbuild¬ ing are marked by the galley, the. gal¬ leon and the caravel, says Doc Wilson. The galley was the rowing type of ship. The sailing galleon was considerably larger in tonnage, designed with very blunt bows, much heavier^ and deeper in body with the greatest beam on the water line and a decided “tumble home” (inward slope) extending up her top- sides to her main and quarterdecks. Two other distinguishing features of the galleon were the high sterncastle and forecastle. An interesting feature of the sheer (deck line) of the galleon as contrasted with the modern ship is that she was considerably higher aft than forward. All of the galleons were more or less elaborately decorated with handcarving gilt, painting and artistic rope-work. “The builders of the galleons,” says Wilson, “timbered their ships with trees bent in natural growth and hewed and whipsawed to the desired shape. Very little iron was used in this early con¬ struction, the timbers being scarfed and dowelled together. “The interiors of the galleons were not nearly so elaborate in finish as the exteriors; their show was almost al¬ together on the outside. The sailors’ quarters, generally speaking, were very dingy, evil-smelling, ill-lit holds. In addition to the very large crew required to man this type of ship, she also car¬ ried a large complement of soldiers and gunners, and all were huddled together in cramped quarters. The admiral’s quarters, on the other hand, were rather commodious and frequently hung with drapes, with a moderate amount of carving. There were usually very few pieces of furniture, and these were built into the ship. All these things we I took into consideration in building Doug’s pirate fleet.” NOT TOO OLD TO BE ENTERTAINED (Karl Kitchen writes as follows in his interesting daily column in the New York Evening World:) AT THE PIRATE PICTURE. “I never saw a movie that taxed the intelligence of a ten-year-old boy,” said an amateur critic who sat in front of me at the first showing of “The Black Pirate,’ the new Fair¬ banks picture, that came to town night before last. “How about that?” I asked Mel¬ ville E. Stone, the former head of the Associated Press, now nearly eighty, who was sitting beside me, and who smiled at the remark. “You’d better ask somebody older than I am,” replied the veteran news¬ paper man. Piracy holds sway in this city this week, all because Douglas Fairbanks as “The Black Pirate” has captured the . theatre audi¬ ences. Business has been rushing, according to Manager .> ever since “Doug” and his pirate crew arrived. So if you want to watch ’em work, you will have to go early. The pirate adventures are made all the more fascinating because they are shown in natural color. Beautiful Billie Dove is leading lady, and nobody in town, we are told, blames Doug for losing his heart to her in the picture. DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS (BIOGRAPHY) Douglas Fairbanks, who is at the height of outstanding fame on the motion picture screen, has steadily advanced to dominating proportions in the film world. He has piled up a fame scarcely challenged by any other male screen star and at least has no rivals in his own style ot vir¬ ile, romantic comedy drama. He has personality and accomplishments and dynamic energy that make him one of the remarkable men of the time. Fairbanks was trained for the films, unintentionally, on Shakespeare. He was reared, if not to be an actor, at any rate to be qualified to become one. His family was very fond of dramatic art and had many notable friends in the profession. At Denver, where he was born* Fairbanks re¬ ceived a boyhood training that in¬ cluded, fencing, dancing, Delsarte, dramatic literature, and a wide range of athletic exercises besides regular academic studies. He became pro¬ ficient and enthusiastic and keenly ambitious to go on the stage. His wish was gratified at the age of 17. An old friend of the family, Frederick Warde, met him and added Fairbanks to his repertoire company in New York, which was playing nearly the whole gamut of Shakespeare. It was wonderful, valuable experience. Af¬ ter that Fairbanks went in for some more schooling, at Harvard, in a special course. After a year or so of this he returned to the stage, play¬ ing with one Broadway show after another in modest roles, with casual vacations and ventures into commer¬ cial enterprises—for which he did not very much care. But before long he was a Broadway star, the young¬ est of his rank. During this time the films had been becoming important. Fairbanks yield¬ ed to their lure—at $2,000 a week to begin with. His stage success was repeated tenfold on the screen. His smiling, acrobatic manner caught on with the world. His first production “The Lamb,” which he had played as a stage star, was followed progressively by others even more popular. His first film work was with Triangle: followed by an equally long period with Famous Players. At the end of bis contract he allied himself and his own producing company, with the “Big Four”, the other members being Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith. As his own producer and his own star he made such films as “His Majesty the American”, “The Mollycoddle”, and “The Mark of Zor- ro”. He created a sensation above any made before by his production of “The Three Musketeers”, which cost him $700,000. and which was a spec¬ tacular marvel. He spent six months of work on a romantic drama of twice the magnitude of the Dumas picture—Douglas Fairbanks in “Rob¬ in Hood.” Since then he has made “The Thief of Bagdad”, “Don Q. Son of Zorro”, and now “The Black Pi¬ rate.”