Poor Maureen.

If you ever want to truly appreciate how important costumes, makeup, props, sets and extras are to the success of a film, I suggest you watched the 1952 swashbuckler Against Al Flags. Why? Because this film got everything wrong. The costumes were hideous in style and color and looked like they came from a Halloween sale at a dollar store. Even Maureen O'Hara's gowns were garish and unflattering. Not that good costumes would have helped when the makeup was so amateur. Every women in the film was either over- or under-made up, and a couple had cheeks that wouldn't be that rosy in the Arctic. The props, mostly aboard the ship, looked like they were made out of cardboard the night before and painted that very morning. The matte shots of the harbor were so artificial as to be comical. I would have felt sorry for the actors: Anthony Quinn, Maureen O'Hara, and Erroll Flynn, but their performances in no way surpassed the quality of everything else. The good thing about this film is it reminds you that the quality of most films is very high, if it weren't it would be as glaringly obvious as all of Against All Flags.

Note: Shown here is the usual gorgeous Maureen O'Hare wearing two of the hideous costumes in Against All Flags. I have no fear that someone will say, "I think that gown is pretty."