Double Crossbones

Charles Barton directed this movie for Universal in 1951, starring the singing and dancing David O’Connor. The script is by Oscar Brodney with some input from John Grant. But it’s not really a musical…it has one song. It’s a fun and silly movie in the same mode as the earlier Bob Hope vehicle The Princess and the Pirate.

O’Connor’s character Davey works in a store in Charlestown, but a series of hijinks results in everyone thinking he’s a bloodthirsty pirate. Ann Bonney appears in act 2 as a minor character on an anachronistic panel of pirate grandees that includes Kidd, Every, Morgan, and Blackbeard. No sign of John Rackam or Mary Read–like The Spanish Main before it, Double Crossbones uses Ann Bonney’s name as shorthand for a female pirate character. In this movie she is not just a pirate but a pirate captain so she’s on the same footing as the rest of them.

Ann is played by 53-year-old Hope Emerson, who was previously the bullying jailer in the women’s prison movie Caged, FUCK yes.

Davey auditions to join the pirate panel.

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Ann likes him and thinks they should approve him. Every accuses her of being horny for him, but she insists her feelings are maternal. She says, “If I’d married instead of taking to the sea when I did, I might have had a son of my own.” However, she immediately starts hitting on Davey anyway.

Davey tries to persuade the pirate leaders to combine forces and lay siege to Charlestown (for plot reasons) and Ann is the only one who’s game. She asks him to join up with her but he is determined to go it alone. She is even more impressed and condemns the other pirates as cowards.

After the climactic battle scene when we are introduced to the new status quo, Davey’s comic-relief-y sidekick Mr Botts proudly announces that he is going to be Mr Captain Ann Bonney.

The pirates are all offered pardons and they speculate about what they might do with their lives. “I could be an honest man,” says William Kidd. “We could be loyal to the king,” says Blackbeard. “I could open an honest business,” says Henry Every. But for some reason Ann is the only one who is stumped. “But what will I do?” she asks. Mr Botts suggests, “You could buy a little house for me and take care of it.” She says she can’t cook. He says he can, and she laughs, followed by a weirdly long silence. (lol)