"Murdered by pirates is good!"

Last week Catherine and I sort of* kicked off our watching of pirate movies with an old favorite and one of the cleverest works of modern cinema: The Princess Bride. We were, of course, observing carefully the representation of the Dread Pirate Roberts (quite possibly an homage to Bartholomew Roberts), and this line, in particular, caught our attention: "Then he explained that the name was the important thing for inspiring the necessary fear. You see, no one would surrender to the Dread Pirate Westley." This was welcome -- if happily non-academic -- support for our strong conviction that names matter. Below, for your unmitigated enjoyment, is the scene from the Fire Swamp where Westley explains the history of the Dread Pirate Roberts (beginning at 1:20):



Also, because I cannot resist the pairing of narrative, pirate, and the Princess Bride, xkcd brings us:



*Actually, for geneaological purposes, Variety Pirate Theater 3000 (as one friend has termed it) will proceed in chronological order beginning with the 1921 silent film The Sea Lion. The Princess Bride was mostly just for fun. Below is our list of films:

1921- The Sea Lion
1926- The Black Pirate
1933- In the Wake of the Bounty
1935- Captain Blood
1935- Phantom Ship
1936- Captain Calamity
1938- The Buccaneer
1939- Mutiny of the Elsinor
1940- The Sea Hawk
1942- The Black Swan
1948- The Pirate
1950- Buccaneer’s Girl
1950- Double Crossbones
1952- Against All Flags
1952- Blackbeard the Pirate
1952- Mutiny
1952- Pirate of the Blackhawk
1952- Yankee Buccaneer
1953- Peter Pan
1955- Long John Silver
1956- Manfish
1956- The Buccaneers (The Complete Series)
1982- The Pirate Movie
1987- The Princess Bride
1991- Hook
2003- Peter Pan
2003- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
2004- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
2006- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
2007- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End