The Sea Hawk is a 1940 American adventure film from Warner Bros. that stars Errol Flynn as an English privateer who defends his nation's interests on the eve of the launch of the Spanish Armada. The film was the tenth collaboration between Flynn and director Michael Curtiz. Its screenplay was written by Howard Koch and Seton I. Miller. The rousing musical score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold is recognized as a high point in his career. The film was both an adventure and a period piece about Elizabethan England's struggles with Spain. It was also meant as a deliberately pro-British propaganda film to build morale during World War II and to influence the American public into having a more pro-British outlook. King Philip was presented as an allegorical Hitler. (The same theme had been visited in Alexander Korda's film Fire Over England, released three years earlier, before World War II started). Colorized versions of The Sea Hawk were broadcast on American television and distributed on VHS tape in 1986. Only the black-and-white, edited version (109 minutes) and the fully restored/uncut version (127 minutes) have been released on the DVD and Blu-ray formats. No plans have been announced to release the colorized version on DVD. Plot King Philip II of Spain declares his intention to destroy England as a first step to world conquest, eager to make his empire reach from Northern Europe to China and India. He sends Don Álvarez as his ambassador to allay the suspicions of Queen Elizabeth I about the great armada he is building to invade England. In England, some of the queen's ministers plead with her to build a fleet, which she hesitates to do in order to spare the purses of her subjects. The ambassador's ship is captured en route to England by the Albatross and her captain, Geoffrey Thorpe. Don Álvarez and his niece Doña María are taken aboard and transported to England. Thorpe immediately is enchanted by Doña María and gallantly returns her plundered jewels. Her detestation of him softens as she too begins to fall in love. Don Álvarez is granted an audience with the queen and complains about his treatment; Doña María is accepted as one of her maids of honour. The "Sea Hawks", a group of English privateers who raid Spanish merchant shipping, appear before the queen, who scolds them (at least publicly) for their activities and for endangering the