Seven Seas to Calais (DVD)

Make ready the topsails! Australian-born leading man Rod Taylor portrays English seafaring captain Sir Francis Drake in this sword-clanging, swashbuckling adventure told in bold, colorful strokes that includes Drake's circumnavigation of the globe, a mutiny at sea, raids that brought England a wealth of Spanish gold, Spain's foiled scheme to supplant Queen Elizabeth (and replace her with Mary of Scotland) and Drake's daring battle-at-sea gambit that left the mighty Spanish Armada in ruins. Three-time Tony Award-winning Broadway legend Irene Worth essays the role of politically crafty Elizabeth, who convinces Spanish ambassadors that she loathes Drake's privateering while secretly financing him. In the same month that Seven Seas to Calais was released in the U.s., Taylor would find more onscreen foes - this time not at sea but in the air, when he starred in Alfred Hitchcock's memorable The Birds.