Sea Hawk, The (1924)
*** (out of 4)
Oliver Tressilian (Milton Sills) goes from a rich man to slave and then works his way back up in this faithful adaptation of Rafael Sabatini's famous novel. Most people know the 1940 Errol Flynn version, which is considered a major classic but that version left me rather flat when i watched it a couple years ago. This silent version isn't a classic but to me it's somewhat more entertaining. The funny thing is that I praised the Flynn version for various battle scenes but it turns out that many of them were lifted from this film because Warner felt they couldn't top the scenes here. The battle scenes here are certainly the highlight and the slave mutiny is full of excitement. Sills, a major star in the silent era who is now forgotten, delivers a very strong performance but the screenplay doesn't offer him too much outside the lover/fighter part. Wallace Beery is also good in his role as another Captain but Enid Bennett is rather lame as the love interest. Towards the end of the film there's some nice tinted scenes but the real surprise was the hand colored flames, which appear in three scenes.
