The Devil-Ship Pirates

Christopher Lee - Captain Robeles
Barry Warren - Don Manuel Rodriguez de Savilla
John Cairney - Harry
Suzan Farmer - Angela Smeeton
Michael Ripper - Pepe
Duncan Lamont - The Bosun
Ernest Clark - Sir Basil Smeeton
Natasha Pyne - Jane
Philip Latham - Miller
Harry Locke - Bragg
Andrew Keir - Tom
Johnny Briggs - Pablo

The Devil-Ship Pirates saw Hammer's preoccupation with swashbucklers continue with another Saturday morning style adventure in the same vein as Captain Clegg (1962) and The Pirates of Blood River (1962). This unremarkable romp was quite lively if a little colorless; the film is kept moving by director Don Sharp, working from a script by Jimmy Sangster, while the supporting cast includes the likes of Hammer regulars Andrew Keir, Duncan Lamont and Michael Ripper. By no means a classic of the genre, the shoestring budget film nevertheless remains of passing note for one specific reason: it was the first film actually to top-bill Christopher Lee, despite the fact that he'd played the title roles in both Dracula (1958) and The Mummy (1959) and was by now an international star of some repute.

July 1988, in the English Channel the Spanish Armada are being defeated by Francis Drake’s navy, and one of the smallest Spanish ships, Diablo, disengages from the battle badly damaged and slips inland to make repair. Captained by Spanish pirate Captain Roebels (Christopher Lee), the pirate ships puts in for repairs alongside a small Cornish fishing village and convince the townsfolk that the English lost to the Armada and that large parts of England are now under Spanish rule. Roebels has four days with which to repair his ship, and when it looks likely he’ll set sail before the militia arrive the villagers decide to attack.