First of all, a word about THE CRIMSON
PIRATE. I’ve loved this film since the
first time I saw it on television in the early Sixties, which would have been some
ten years after it came out in 1952. I
was captivated, even as a youngster, by Lancaster, a former circus performer
who moved like a spring-loaded tiger and had a grin that lit up the screen,
even in black and white. He made a
splendid pirate, swinging from the yardarm with a cutlass in his hand! Even better, as Captain Vallo, he fell in
love with the beautiful daughter of a revolutionary leader on a Caribbean
island and broke the (questionable) pirate code to rescue and win her! How romantic is that?
In the commentary after the movie on TCM, I
learned that THE CRIMSON PIRATE is often seen as Lancaster’s poke in the eye of
the House Unamerican Activities Committee, which was devastating Hollywood at
the time with its accusations of “collusion” with the Communists. A “crimson” pirate, helping a people’s
revolution against a bunch of oppressive stuffed shirts? Oh, yeah, I see it now.
But the best part of it has always been that
foundation of why we love the idea of
pirates. Lancaster’s Captain Vallo was
loyal to his crew, resourceful, courageous and self-sacrificing. He resisted feminine wiles for the most part,
but when he fell, he fell hard. He had
his own personal code of ethics, from which he never deviated. He was a leader, full of natural
charisma. Vallo, indeed, was like every
other ship’s captain we’ve grown to love from Horatio Hornblower and Jack
Aubrey to Jim Kirk and Trilby Elliott.
It just so happened he captained a pirate ship.
Pirates choose to operate outside the
boundaries of the law. Sometimes they
are forced to do so, for reasons of politics or personal circumstances. That makes them dangerous, but, depending on
the backstory, it doesn’t always make them bad people. At least that is the romantic version of
piracy. We can imagine a Captain Vallo,
a pirate with a heart of gold, if you will.
He operates under the pirate code as long as it suits him (or if it’s
necessary), stealing without remorse, or killing men in a fair fight. But when an ethical choice is forced on him,
he will follow his own personal code, refusing to betray a trust for money or
to stab a man in the back. And his past can always be redeemed by his actions—and
his love.
Most of the lone traders or “space pirates”
of SFR fall in this category. (And if
you don’t think there are plenty of those out there, just call up the space
pirates tag in Amazon and see what you come up with!) Like Captain Mal’s Serenity crew, these anti-heroes aren’t Blackbeards boarding ships,
raping, killing and pillaging. Instead
they wander the galaxy trying to earn a living any way they can, with one barely
legal deal after another. They go where
others won’t go, trade where others won’t and with those whom others
scorn. They conduct business in sleazy
bars and back alleys, or maybe in the darkest corner of a spacedock warehouse. They
lead dangerous lives; there’s always a chance somebody will end up dead.
Writing for space pirates is space noir at
its best. And it’s a lot of fun. The third book in my Interstellar Rescue series, Fools
Rush In, features Captain Sam Murphy of the Shadowhawk, a man with a reputation ruthless enough to make anyone
traveling the space lanes through the Minertsan Empire think twice. Those who fear him call him “blackjack”—pirate—but
it is the slavers Murphy hates that are the true criminals. He stops them at any opportunity, returning
the “cargo” to the nearest Rescue center and taking the ship as bounty.
But when he stops the slaver Fleeflek, he gets more than he bargained
for. Rescue agent Rayna Carver is
undercover among the slaves onboard, set to infiltrate the Minertsan weapons
factory on a tiny planetoid called LinHo.
Murphy’s rescue has ruined months of planning for her, and she demands
his help in getting to LinHo. As things
heat up between the captain and his insistent new passenger, a bigger danger
threatens the Shadowhawk. Rayna Carver wasn’t the only agent undercover
on that slaver, and the lovers’ soon discover that their fate and that of their
ship, is tied to the progress of a civil war in an alien empire.
Sam Murphy doesn’t look much like the gallant
Captain Vallo of THE CRIMSON PIRATE. He
has black hair and green eyes instead of Lancaster’s tow head and blue
eyes. He’s tall and broad-shouldered,
rather than lithe and lean. And he doesn’t
flash that grin nearly as much. But the
heart of gold? That’s still there. Circumstances made him a pirate, but he’s no blackjack, the term I use in the book
for a true rapist/murderer/pillager. He
loves his crew; they love him. And
whatever he may have done in his past, his actions in the book—and his love of
Rayna—redeem him.
That’s what it is about
pirates. And it makes them irresistible.
Cheers, Donna
