MovieChat Forums > The Spanish Main Discussion > Did I Miss Something?

Did I Miss Something?

posted 13 years ago by mrs_shakespeare
7 replies | jump to latest

How did Alvarado die? One minute he was alive and the next he was dead. Did he kill himself because he didn't want to work or was it "friendly fire." It didn't seem clear.

[–] scarletto_hare 12 years ago

When he goes to ring the bell one of the pirates throw a knife at him which gets him in the side, you see him pull it out and throw it away.

The only Abnormality is the incapacity to love

[–] mrs_shakespeare 11 years ago

Thank you! I finally got to see the movie again. I don't know how I missed the pirate throwing that knife at him. It took him so long to die, and I couldn't figure out what happened.

[–] spookyrat1 10 years ago

It took him so long to die ...

He hung around as he didn't want to miss the end of the fireworks which were ignited to salute him.🐭

[–] mam13143 9 years ago

Well I just watched the movie on TCM, and after the canon and rocket salute from the fort, o'hara asks if he can be spared from the pirates who want to kill him, maybe give him a job. Slezak says he could never do work and he literally dies in the chair. (Remember he and O'hara were sitting there pretending to be married, which is why they get the big salute from the fort). There is no knife throwing or anything like it. An anticlamatic ending to say the least, and Mankiewicz even says after the movie that his grandfather wanted a more spectacular ending and was refused cause they didn't have the money.

[–] Jason_Radley 11 years ago

The part about the ending I didn't understand was why they stopped firing at the ship and started firing rockets in celebration.

[–] huwdj 11 years ago

They didn't fire at the ship. The cannon fire was a salute then they switched to celebratory rockets.

[–] Skye_Reynolds 9 years ago

I feel like the ending could have worked for tension if they had simply played it better. When Alvarado is boasting of his alleged victory, we're anticipating that there's about to be a grand battle. Unbeknownst to us, all of his men have been subdued.

I think the part where he's tied to a chair works as the uneasy passage has some tension to it. What doesn't work is the false expectation that the film builds or the anticlimactic manner in which Alvarado is stabbed by one of his extras.

It would have been better if the sword fight -- the one in which Anne Bonny is killed -- was placed aboard the Barracuda instead and the unaware Alvarado walked out to find the ship quiet.