Douglas Fairbanks began his movie career in social comedies, but because of his rugged physicality and athletic good looks, he turned to swashbucklers and starred in some of the most spectacular action films of the 1920s. Even at the age of 42, he was lithe and well-muscled and Fairbanks turned The Black Pirate (1926) into one of the most memorable action films of the silent era.

In the 18th century, a Spanish galleon is captured on the high seas by a band of pirates, who then loot the ship and blow it up. Two men survive and swim to the nearest shore, but one of them—the father of the other man—dies of his wounds. His son (Douglas Fairbanks) buries him and swears to avenge his death.

The pirates come ashore and the Fairbanks character fakes fealty to their cause and asks to join their band. To prove his worth, he must fight their leader (Anders Randolf), using a rapier in one hand and a dagger in the other. The two men fight to the death, the younger man killing the pirate captain and leaving the buccaneers without a leader.

Now calling himself the Black Pirate, he boards the cutthroats' ship and sets out to capture a merchant ship singlehandedly—a feat he accomplishes through his athleticism and his cunning. This is the setting for the film's most famous scene: Fairbanks as the Black Pirate, slitting the mainsail with his knife, top to bottom, riding the rigging all the way down from the top of the mast.

But the captured merchant ship contains an unexpected treasure: the flame-haired princess Isobel (Billie Dove), a Spanish noblewoman of rare beauty. When she is discovered on board, the lustful pirates hold a lottery to win her "favors;" but the Black Pirate intervenes and exacts their promise to keep her "spotless and unharmed" while they hold her for ransom.

Fairbanks was never better in his physical stunts—90 per cent of which he performed himself, with the closeups to prove it—or in his swordplay—in one scene, he cheerfully duels with a half dozen opponents at once. But another reason The Black Pirate was one of the major hits in the spring of 1926 is that it was photographed in Technicolor, as one of only about a half dozen full-length silent films shot entirely in color.

Fairbanks was one of the principal cheerleaders in favor of doing the film in color. He felt that the screen had never caught the real spirit of piracy as one finds it in the old adventure books and paintings, but that he could catch it by the use of color photography. He was quoted as saying, "Personally I could not imagine piracy without color."

In the film, of course the Black Pirate has no intention of handing over the princess; rather, he is trying to save her life. He reveals his secret intent to her through a confidant, a reformed blackguard named MacTavish (Donald Crisp).

The Black Pirate encounters one little snag: the leader of his opposition among the pirates (Sam DeGrasse) gets wise to his plans, and forces the princess' would-be savior to walk the plank. Off the end of the board he goes, into the depths of the ocean. But because MacTavish has secretly cut his bonds, as soon as he hits the water, the Black Pirate swims to shore. He returns with a detachment of soldiers, they storm the ship, defeat the pirates after much fierce swordplay, and rescue the princess.

Now it is revealed that the Black Pirate is none other than the Duke of Arnoldo, himself a nobleman. Once the ship is secured in safe hands, he wastes no time in asking the princess for her hand in marriage, an offer she accepts with relish.

On the Kino Video DVD of The Black Pirate, there's a special feature narrated by film historian Rudy Behlmer, who tells us that when the Duke and the Princess seal their engagement with a passionate kiss, the lady in the scene is not Billie Dove, but actually Fairbanks' superstar wife Mary Pickford. As a studio in-joke, Miss Pickford donned Miss Dove's red wig and costume and "stood in" for her, for that final embrace.

If that story is true, that would make The Black Pirate Miss Pickford's one and only film appearance in color. It also would mean this is the first time Doug and Mary appeared in a film together, predating their starring roles in the 1929 talkie, The Taming of the Shrew.