Seven Seas To Calais (1962)

Set in 1577, the privateer Francis Drake (Rod Taylor) secretly receives financing from Queen Elizabeth I (Irene Worth) to raid the Spanish gold in the New World. Directed by Rudolph Mate (WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE), this inferior swashbuckler buckles more than it swashes. Its adventures on the high seas are recycled from dozens of earlier (and better) movies and once again, indigenous women are seen as eager playthings for their European conquerors. The movie briefly comes alive in its last half hour or so with a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth but the finale featuring the battle with the Spanish Armada is a dud. As Drake, Taylor isn't given a screen romance which leaves Keith Michell as his right hand man and Hedy Vessel as a lady in waiting in Elizabeth's court to pick up the slack. Franco Mannino's mediocre score has one wishing that Erich Wolfgang Korngold would come in and take over and whisk us away into celluloid heaven. With Terence Hill and Anthony Dawson.