Other classic swashbucklers

As with many such questions, it depends a bit on what all you count as being in the genre and what all your tastes really run toward. In other words: Are sword fights required? Is it the acrobatic stunt work that you like? Is it the devil-may-care attitude? Are fantasy elements (such as the genies and such in various versions if Sinbad) allowed?

If you have a taste for silents and swashbucklers then you can't go too far wrong with most of Douglas Fairbanks' (Sr. that is) filmography. There's The Black Pirate and his versions of The Thief of Bagdad and The Mark of Zorro and Robin Hood and The Three Musketeers etc. At that point Hollywood wasn't yet hiring actual fencing masters to choreograph their sword fights, so those tend a bit toward the random waving of blades. However, the rest of the stunts are generally quite impressive. Plus, Flynn is really the only other person Fairbanks' league for devil-may-care-ness. (If it was in "talkies", Fairbanks' acting style would come across as a bit too much over-the-top. But it's not, so his slight over-pantomiming comes across as completely appropriate to the silent medium.)

If swordplay isn't a big requirement, then you could look at Gunga Din and possibly The Charge of the Light Brigade. (Some people avoid Light Brigade on ethical grounds. It was before laws banning trip wires for horses and such, so apparently about 200 horses died during the filming.)

More traditionally in the realm of pirates, there's The Black Swan with Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara; and The Spanish Main with Paul Heinreid and Maureen O'Hara, and Walter Slezak as the evil governor. (Personally, I find Heinreid a bit less dynamic than the likes of Power or Flynn; but O'Hara and Slezak are always great.) Not quite in the class of Flynn's pirates, but still pretty good.

If you accept some magic in your swashbucklers, and speaking of O'Hara and Slezak, they did 1940s version of Sinbad the Sailor with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (he's not up to his father's level, but he's OK). There's also the Korda version of The Thief of Bagdad and a few Ray Harryhausen projects such as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. (I could never describe it as a "swashbuckler", but once you get to Harryhausen's stop motion animation it's not really that big of a step to the original 1930s version of King Kong as an adventure story in a more modern setting.)

Leaving magic and returning more in the general direction of "historical fiction", you could check out the Leslie Howard / Merle Oberon version of The Scarlett Pimpernel and a couple different versions of The Prisoner of Zenda (the last I checked, 2 versions of Zenda came on the same DVD).

If musicals are acceptable there's The Pirate starring Gene Kelly and Judy Garland; and yet another evil governor type role for Walter Slezak. Speaking of Kelly, you could check out his version of The Three Musketeers with June Allyson as Constance and Lana Turner as Milady (not to mention Vincent Price as Richelieu). Personally, I prefer the Lester version, but you could do worse than this if you're looking for older swashbucklers in general.

Tyrone Power's The Mark of Zorro is very high on my list, along with Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, Against All Flags, and The Master of Ballantrae.

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The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) is the best version by far of any other film versions before or since. Starring the great Ronald Colman and featuring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as the rascally villain.

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This movie is a perfect 10/10 for me and I was wondering if you could list some other classic swashbucklers for me to check out. I've seen Captain Blood, The Mark of Zorro, and The Sea Hawk, plus newer ones like The Three Musketeers (Lester versions). Any other ideas for classic swashbucklers that must be seen?

Realizing that we both seem to have exactly the same taste in swashbucklers, I will recommend "The Flame and the Arrow" (1950) and "The Crimson Pirate" (1952), both with Burt Lancaster.

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Another good "swashbuckler" is Scaramouche (1952) with Stewart Granger and Mel Ferrer who have a terrific sword fight as the movie's climax.

IMO, anything with Errol Flynn can be counted as a swashbuckler even if it's without swords. Charge of the Light Brigade, Dodge City, Captain Blood, They Died With Their Boots On, etc. all fantastic movies plus you've got the magical pairing of Flynn & DeHavilland!

One of my favorites is THE FLAME AND THE ARROW, starring Burt Lancaster and Virginia Mayo.

And on the other end of the spectrum, there's the unintentionally funny PRINCE VALIANT, with Robert Wagner in a ludicrous wig ("Yonda lies da palace of my faddah…)!

This thread needs some mentioning of Adventures of Don Juan. Flynn's criminally underrated swashbuckling swan song.