The Pirates of 1920 (1911) User Reviews

Rather amazing for 1911.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 25 December 2018]

If you watch "The Pirates of 1920" and are unfamiliar with silent films and the history of movies, you will probably be underwhelmed or even laugh at the picture. However, given when it was made, it's really an incredible movie...one that seems way ahead of its time. This is because full-length films were just in their infancy and many of the techniques and styles you see in the picture were VERY unusual for 1911.

According to the Roku channel broadcasting it, it says that this film is not complete--though the version I saw on Roku seemed watchable and complete enough. It's all about sky pirates who fly about in their derigible doing evil...all set in the future...1920. So, technically speaking, it's a sci-fi adventure.

It begins with the sky pirates attacking a ship...stealing as well as killing a crew member. One of the guys on the ship, the aptly named Jack Manly, climbs up their ladder to the air ship and gives them what for...but is quickly subdued. After all, it's seven against one! But the pirates soon find a photo of Jack's sweetie on him and now instead of spending their time plundering and getting rich, the Chief insists they kidnap the girl! Can this plucky lady escape? Well, it's not 100% certain as the ending IS missing!

The bottom line is that for film historians and the very curious, this is a well made and intricate (for 1911) movie....well worth seeing and fun.

Not To Be Confused With 'Golddiggers of 1937'

[boblipton · 5/10 · 25 September 2018]

When William Schweck Gilbert had Ruth apprentice Frederick to a pirate instead of to a pilot, he missed a bet. In this scientifictional two-reeler from what should have been the middle of his apprenticeship shows that the pirates will pilot dirigibles and take ships from above. After stealing some canisters from the liner, the pirates take back to the air, pursued only by a lone young man. After they subdue him, they discover a picture of his sweetheart and the Pirate King -- I mean captain -- abducts her.

It's an imaginative story for 1911, and the special effects (model work, mostly) are decently if imperfectly rendered. It's still very clearly primitive, particularly the acting, but it would be nice if the last few minutes of this ambitious two-reel 'voyage extraordinare' were available for viewing.

The Pirates of 1920 review

[JoeytheBrit · 4/10 · 20 May 2020]

After holding up a seaship, a sky pirate decides to kidnap the captain's sweetheart. An ambitious SF epic from Britain's Crick and Martin which is by turns painfully amateurish and unintentionally funny. The cast appear to be receiving no direction at all, which means that up to a dozen people are exercising their right to grab our attention while paying only cursory attention to what is going on around them. The effects are decent for the time, but it really does feel as if everyone involved is making it up as they go along.

A brief encounter of pirates along their sail on the ocean.

[zoe_14 · 4/10 · 20 November 1999]

Brief, stupid and unimaginative. Although this movie tries hard to be magical, it does not succeed and once you're finished watching it you feel annoyed at how it was a waste of your valuable time. I recommend any who are tempted to watch it that you'd have more fun watching a cooking show than this idiotic film.