The Accidental Patriot: The Lamentable Tragedy of the Pirate Desmond Connelly, Irish by Birth, English by Blood, and American by Inclination is the third installment of Stolen Chair's CineTheatre Tetralogy, an original 1930s-style swashbuckling adventure (as Sophocles might have written it if he’d been under contract to Warner Brothers), set against the tumultuous backdrop of the American Revolution. This mash-up of Greek tragedy and Errol Flynn-era pirate films features both rapier duels and rapier wit as it satirizes heroism, patriotism, altruism, and all of the other flimsy –isms that move us to action.
Our eponymous tragic hero, British privateer Desmond Connelly, takes up the colonists’ cause when a British admiral murders his best friend, a Bostonian patriot. He abandons his post to become a pirate, seeking his vengeance and sailing towards the destiny that will reveal his mysterious parentage.