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Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow not the only famous movie pirate

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Johnny Depp's swaggering, royally daft Capt. Jack Sparrow of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” voyages is certainly a quirky and theatrical scoundrel. But no one can accuse his many big-screen pirate predecessors of being shrinking violets either, and a rogue's gallery of famous movie buccaneers offers up some outlandish scalawags that are every bit Sparrow's equal in charming villainy.

There's more to a good movie pirate than parrots, peg legs and eye patches, and the best ones incorporate some unique characteristics that set them apart from the scurvy crowd.

Here are a few of our best of the worst and what makes them special:

Captain Blood (“Captain Blood,” 1935) — Errol Flynn is practically synonymous with the word “swashbuckler.” In this jaunty bit of swordplay — from director Michael Curtiz, based on the classic seagoing tale by Rafael Sabatini — Flynn's wrongly imprisoned doctor-turned-Robin-Hood pirate sets the standard for athletic swagger.

Long John Silver (“Treasure Island,” 1934) — Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure tale of buried pirate booty was filmed many times, but no one embodied the squinty-eyed charm of the one-legged Long John Silver better than the scurvy Wallace Beery, who led Jackie Cooper's young Jim Hawkins astray in Victor Fleming's classic version of the story.

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