Blackbeard

Blackbeard the Pirate -- played by Sidney Ayres, raids Martinique. He takes prisoner governor Hobart Bosworth and his family, and makes Bosworth walk the plank. Fortunately, Bosworth makes it to shore and is picked up by a British man o' war commanded by Ton Santschi, which engages with Blackbeard's ship.

It's slightly primitive for 1911, but well shot by director Francis Boggs, who would be murdered later that year. It's one of William Selig's productions. Like many early film pioneers, he entered show business as a magician, and starting producing films in 1896. By the early 1910s, his was one of the leading production companies, and he was an early employer of such future stars as Broncho Billy Anderson, Tom Mix, and Roscoe Arbuckle. The First World War destroyed his European distribution, the ending of the Patents Trust case -- as well as the expiration of the attending patents -- allowed the former independents to take over the industry, and a zoo and amusement park were on the wrong side of Los Angeles. He died almost broke in 1948 at the age of 84.