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I'm Not Sure I Totally Understood the Ending

posted 11 years ago by john-hitchcock
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I finally decided to sit down and watch this film after it had been sitting in my drawer for who knows how long, and for the first little while, it was enjoyable enough, though probably not the best silent film I've seen.

The climax really threw me off though. Right around the point when Douglas Fairbanks gets to the island. He gets on there and rides a horse and then suddenly shows up out of nowhere with an entire crew aboard a gigantic war canoe. I didn't get it, who were those guys? Why are they so supportive of him? Just where exactly was this island that they were able to get a gigantic boat like that. I suppose they could have been near a port since the governor shows up soon after but even then there's no explanation for how Douglas Fairbanks was able to put together such an army.

Furthermore, at the very end, I got rather confused when the governor showed up and started addressing Douglas Fairbanks as "Lord". Was that supposed to be a twist? You can tell that the girl is genuinely shocked but I couldn't tell if that's actually who he was supposed to be or if the governor is covering for him or what.

I don't know. This probably isn't the greatest silent film I've ever seen. And before anyone criticizes me I have seen a few good ones like Metropolis, The Gold Rush, and The General (that's also not including more contemporary cases like Silent Movie or The Call of Cthulhu).

And when Jack Crow and Buffy Summers joined forces, Edward Cullen never knew what hit him.

[–] Countorloc 11 years ago

The sense of the ending is that he indeed is a Lord of sorts. The audience has been told this in advance by his ring and - if I recall correctly - there are other clues. But yeah, he seems to come back with that war canoe pretty quickly. However, I don't mind this too much myself. It's a great piece of fluff with all the elements one would want from a pirate film in the classical sense. There is a boyish naïvité about the spectacular action,the conniving scoundrels,the damsel in distress and the sudden revelation of secret royalty.
I don't know that it's fair to compare Black Pirate, to any of those silent films you mention as it hardly strives for technical or artistic innovation. Rather it should perhaps be compared to Erroll Flynn films or just action films in general where - as "The Black Pirate" shows us - great dialogue is not oft requisite. To me, "The Black Pirate" isn't a silent film, but an action movie.

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[–] mdonln 8 years ago

john-hitchcock says > Furthermore, at the very end, I got rather confused when the governor showed up and started addressing Douglas Fairbanks as "Lord". Was that supposed to be a twist?

This is where the whole thing came together for me. When the governor arrives and thanks him I got the impression he had been on a mission to capture these bandits. That's why he was on the first ship they took over and blew up. He had been working undercover along with a few of his men.

I had been wondering about a lot of things that I didn't really understand until the end of the movie. By the way I was enjoying the Technicolor version on TCM (which I recorded a while ago) but the end was cut off. I had to rent it on Amazon but that was the black & white version.

Anyway, I was confused when he joined up with the pirates. I thought it was to sabotage their next attack on a ship but I wasn't sure. Then I thought he would turn the canons in their direction and blast them out of the water but that didn't happen either. I noticed some of the pirates were working with him; again, I had no idea why. The guys on the vessel that they made collapse, all having the same uniform look was another concern. Finally, I came up with what I think was the answer.

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