Fifty years before Cutthroat Island turned the infamous Anne Bonny into a cartoonlike buccaneer, Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie) had given the pirate queen of the Caribbean a full sail. Jean Peters runs the Sheba Queen as Captain Providence, pillaging the British fleet around Jamaica, along with many a male ego. Worse yet, Captain Providence wears men's garb, so beneath that salty exterior lies a proto-feminist willing to run you through. A few broadsides, some plank walking, off to Port Royale for R&R with Bonny's mentor Blackbeard, and then it's time for romancing the debonair Capt. Pierre La Rochelle (Louis Jourdan), a privateer taken prisoner in the film's opening cannonade and, as we shall see, evidence for her mistrust of men. Anne's unsheathed love for Pierre proves to be her undoing. In a weak moment, she trades in her manly pantaloons for a lacy gown, taking on a corset where once she set her own course.