During a Scottish uprising, a family decides to hedge its bets to save their fortune. Jamie Durie, the headstrong older brother (Errol Flynn), will join the rebellion while Henry (Anthony Steel), the younger and more reasonable one, will claim to be faithful to England. The rebellion fails and Jamie makes his escape with Francis Burke (Roger Livesey), an Irish soldier. A misunderstanding leads Jamie to believe that his brother has betrayed him. He and Burke end up with pirates, where they fit in well. Jamie has one goal: to return to Scotland and face his brother.
The golden age of Swashbucklers was over, as was the brightest part of Errol Flynnâs career. Resurrection of either was impossible, but Warner Bros. tried the formula one more time, shooting in Scotland to save moneyâboth the studioâs and Flynnâs who had problems with the IRS. The film looks nice, but it lacks the old epic feel (battles are skipped, showing only the corpses after the fact) and fills in the story with misplaced narration. Flynn no longer cut the dashing figure of his youth. He was 44 and looked 54. WB would have been better served by adhering to Robert Louis Stevenson novel of the same name, but they used it only as a foundation, dropping the character drama and replacing it with well worn swashbuckler beats. These are delivered passably well, but nothing more. Time had been unkind to Flynn, the genre, and the studio.
Flynn once again takes on his ârascalâ persona, but it lacks the normal charisma, partly because of his lack and partly due to the writing. We are told that Jamie is charming but never shown it. He is just an ass and instead of wishing for his success, I was hoping for his death. And thatâs the real problem with the movie. A small scale, lesser sword duels, and an aging star could be overlooked if the main character was likable, if he could pull us into his story and make us root for him. Without that, the other failings are too noticeable. Which makes The Master of Ballantrae suitable for watching on TV on a Saturday afternoon with the kids, and then forgotten.
Errol Flynnâs other Swashbucklers/pseudo-Swashbucklers are: Captain Blood (1935), The Prince and the Pauper (1937), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), and The Sea Hawk (1940), Adventures of Don Juan (1948), Against All Flags (1951), Crossed Swords (1954), The Dark Avenger/The Warriors (1955).