Le Avventure di Mary Read, AKA Queen of the Seas, Hell Below Deck (1961)

Directed by: Umberto Lenzi
Starring: Lisa Gastoni, Jerome Courtland

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Mary Read: If the booty won't come to us, then we'll go after the booty.

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Before Gate of Hell, before Cannibal Ferox, even before Messalina Against the Son of Hercules Italian director Umberto Lenzi directed Queen of the Seas, a lighthearted pirate kiddie movie with none of the brutality that Lenzi soon became known for. In Queen, a dungeon master's idea of an insult is to call the prisoners 'hoity toity,' and unruly captives are punished by - gasp - being forced to clean out the royal stables!

Lenzi's directoral debut is a the story of a famous lady thief named Mary Read (Lisa Gastoni), who is jailed after she gets caught robbing a stagecoach. Mary is dressed like a man during the robbery, so she's tossed into a dungeon with Peter (Jerome Courtland), a ruffian accused of robbing royal Lord Goodwin's son. The two hit it off, but when the jailer realizes that Peter is actually the son of Lord Goodwin, Peter is released. He drops by Mary's cell on his way out - not to rescue her - but to mess with her head and tell her that he'd been transferred to a more dangerous dungeon. Then he snickers at her gullibility and walks out!

Dick.

What a Beaut!

Mary eventually escapes prison, and - through an amazing series of events - finds herself the captain of a pirate ship. Mary's marauding lifestyle brings her into conflict with Peter, who had recently joined the Royal Navy in an attempt to avoid marrying the homely woman his father picked to be his wife (a woman so ugly she is literally accompanied with a not-so-subtle 'waugh, waaugh, whaaaaaaa' sound effects).

I guess the sound effects are somewhat appropriate.

Peter doesn't realize at first that he's facing Mary. Much like young Wesley in The Princess Bride, Mary has taken over the mantle of a much feared pirate. And who is the fearsome scaliwag? Black Bart? Bluebeard? The Dread Pirate Roberts? Nope. I'd better let Goodwin explain: "The most dangerous pirate in this area is... the deadly Captain Poof!" That's right. Captain Poof. You literally get scene after scene of Royal Navy bigshots trying to figure out just how they were going to defeat the treacherous Poof. Funny stuff.

In fact, Queen of the Seas is full of bits of dialog that seem laughable now. In addition to the Poof issue, and the Booty quote from above, there are more than a few questionable uses of the word 'seamen.' Examples?

Navy Guy: Who would expect to find a lady like you surrounded by seamen like this!

Or how about -

Captain Poof [To Mary]: You want to join my seamen?
Mary: Yep. [Points to Uncle] My uncle comes too.

Of course all this could be explained as a product of a simpler time, or the result of Italian writers drafting English dialog. I prefer to think that lines like these represent the Lenzi we all love slipping in a few zingers past the stuffy censors.

Yowza!

Peter and Mary eventually come face-to-face, and the duo decide to resolve their differences at swordpoint. But, in true old-school pirate-love-story fashion, everything gets neatly resolved. In fact, the following two pictures come less than 6 minutes apart... hell, even episodes of Samford and Son don't get wrapped up that quickly.

That was... fast.

Queen of the Seas is an interesting first look at a director that would soon become infamous. With paper-thin plots and a soundtrack that would sound more at home in a Disney 'Boy and His Bear' nature film, Lenzi's debut is strangely satisfying. It seems very much like a 1930's Hollywood swashbuckler - from the characters (the beautiful but self-sufficient female and the dashing but cocky male) to the plot (said guy and girl get together, bucking all societal expectations) to the sets (I'm pretty sure Lenzi couldn't have paid more than $30-40 a day for those two ships that just sit there in every 'sea' scene) - giving the movie a very comfortable feel. And hey, do you really want to miss a movie where a guy named Poof asks a woman in drag to 'join his seamen'? I didn't think so. You can pick it up at Something Weird Video, and it's worth every damn dubloon.

- Micah