Home The Buccaneers on Talking Pictures TV is a pirate adventure series to treasure By Sue Wilkinson Published 21st Sep 2024, 00:00 BST Robert Shaw starred in the Buccaneers Avast me hearties – let’s go a’roving, a roving. Oh, let’s go a’roving and join the Buccaneers – showing on Talking Pictures TV. The Buccaneers was a 1956 Sapphire Films television drama series for ITC Entertainment, broadcast by CBS in the US and shown on ATV and regional ITV companies as they came on air during the infancy of ITV in the UK.
It is the kind of top-notch black-and-white, clean-cut offering the freeview channel specialises in – its schedules include William Tell and the Adventures of Robin Hood. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues.
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. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Notice and Terms of Service apply. The Buccaneers is the tale of pirate Dan Tempest – which reverberated across the years when Troy Tempest became the main character in Gerry Anderson’s supermarionation adventure Stingray – a captain of a futuristic submarine.
He sails the seven seas with his crew aboard the Sultana. Each of the 39 episodes, finds the salty sea dog facing peril on the ocean or ashore at New Providence in the Bahamas. The premise is Tempest is a buccaneer forced to work for the English government and bring other pirates to justice – shark turned fisherman if you will.
His adventures set him on a collison course with slave traders, the French, Spaniards, femme fatale, spies, traders, traitors, scheemers and schooners. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The Buccaneers was high in action and plot – cannon fire, sword-fencing, swinging from the rigging and walking the plank into Davy Jones’ locker. It has everything a great pirate series needs – blaggards, barrels, heroes, ships, sea shanties, grog, treasure, pistols, parrots, lords, ladies, mutineers, muskets, cutlasses and cabins.
The star actor is Robert Shaw – that’s right. The Robert Shaw. He of the dark, brooding premise of salty sea dog Quint in Steven Speilberg’s Jaws.
Shaw was also to play a pirate in Swashbuckler – also known as The Scarlet Buccaneer – the 1976 movie also starring James Earl Jones and Geneviève Bujold. He was also the treasure-hunter Romer Treece in The Deep. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It is Shaw’s series – he swaggers, sword fights and sails.
He’s a lover and a fighter, a romantic and a rogue He’s tough, frightened of nothing. Threatened with death by hanging he says, more or less, bring it on. English soldier: Most men are not in such a hurry to get to the gallows.
Tempest: Most men don’t know how to die. There are touches of Errol Flynn – arguably the best screen pirate ever – see Sea Hawk and Captain Blood – and Tyrone Power – see The Black Swan. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The cast included actors who were or were to become household names – Alfie Bass, Paul Eddington, Derek Nimmo, Joan Sims, the Wonderful Willoughby Goddard, Stringer Davis (Mr Margaret Rutherford) and Alfred Burke.
Though, the episodes were made at Nettlefold Studios at Walton-on-Thames, the production values are such that you can taste the salt in the air and sand beneath your bare feet. The schooner was real and was based at Falmouth. I love anything and everything to do with pirates, highwaymen and smugglers.
I know, in real life, they were murdering marauders; I prefer the romanticised versions of books and screen – and The Buccaneers is among the best. Continue Reading Related topics: ITV CBS.
