The Devil-Ship Pirates

The Devil-Ship Pirates is a 1964 British pirate adventure film directed by Don Sharp.

The film was the first of several collaborations between Don Sharp and star Christopher Lee.

A pirate ship, involved in 1588 battles on the side of the Spanish Armada, suffers extensive damage and must put into a village on the British coast for repairs.

The village is small and isolated. The Spanish convince the villagers that the English fleet has been defeated and that they, the Spanish, are now their masters. This results in the villagers' sullen cooperation, but rumours and unrest begin to spread and soon the Spanish pirates find themselves facing a revolt.

In the early 1960s Hammer Films were best known for their horror movies, but they also tried other genres. The studio made a swashbuckler, The Pirates of Blood River (1962), written by Jimmy Sangster and starring Christopher Lee; it was a success at the box office, so Hammer commissioned Sangster to write another pirate-themed story for Lee, The Devil Ship Pirates. "The idea was to release these bloody-but-not-too- bloody adventure films during school holidays, and they made a fortune on them," said Don Sharp, who would direct Devil Ship.

The film was part of a new slate of eight films James Carreras announced in July 1963 that Hammer would make, others including Quatermass and the Pit, She, Blood of the Foreign Legion, Brainstorm (which became Fear in the Night), The Evil of Frankenstein, The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, and The Secret of Blood Island. Most of these were not made until later and Blood of the Foreign Legion was never made at all.

Don Sharp had just directed his first feature for Hammer, Kiss of the Vampire and was invited back to work at the studio by Tony Hinds. Sharp says the film was aimed at the school holiday market so it needed to have a "U" certificate. "But they wanted it to look like a X film. So we had an action film with kids in it," said Sharp.

It was the first time Sharp had worked with Christopher Lee. The director had seen several of Lee's performances "and I was worried about a range I saw as playing down one line. But right from our first meeting we got on and when we talked it was two actors talking. We'd explore his character and I found myself suggesting depths to Captain Roebles that I hadn't expected I'd be able to. Chris is tremendously professional and can essay roles that are charming and threatening at the same time - he has a lovely stillness about him. He’s a very commanding presence." Lee received top billing for the first time in films.