The Black Pirate (1926)

 Albert Parker's "The Black Pirate"


In the 1920s, color film was a rarity. First utilized in 1922 with "The Toll of the Sea," two-tone Technicolor processing required two strips of 35mm film to be fused together back-to-back to create a two-tone palette. Because this process was so difficult to film as well as project, it was used sparingly. 1926's "The Black Pirate" was only the third film that used this method for the entirety of the film up to that point. Douglas Fairbanks, the world-renowned screen action hero, produced the film. Fairbanks issued extensive camera tests before filming began to work out an appropriate visual style. He did not want the color in the film to be a distraction. The finished product resulted in a more muted look, rather than the stark coloring of "The Toll of the Sea." 

Because of the extensive work done on the film's coloring process, not much work was put into story, as the story needed to be fairly simple to accommodate the limited camerawork. It stars Fairbanks as an athletic young man who joins a pirate company so that he can infiltrate them and exact revenge for his father's death. Despite being an 'action' film, little special effects were used (due to the limited use of camerawork). 

Many consider "The Black Pirate" to be one of the most important technicolor films, due to its expansion of the process. It was added to the National Film Registry in 1993. 



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