In the West Coast of England in 1765, a young boy called Jim Hawkins lives with his mother in a tiny country inn which they run. Captain William Bones, a sickly lodger, gives Hawkins a treasure map after being visited by two pirates, the second of whom gives the captain a note marked with the black spot. That same night Bones is found dead at the inn, and Hawkins shows Squire Trelawney the map. Trelawney recognises the map as belonging to the buccaneer Captain Flint and bankrolls a voyage to discover the pirate's lost treasure. Trelawney hires Captain Smollett and his ship, the Hispaniola, bringing along his friend Dr. Livesey as the ship's doctor and Hawkins as the cabin boy.
The pirate Yellowbeard (Chapman) is incarcerated for 20 years for tax evasion. He survives the sentence but has not disclosed the whereabouts of his vast treasure. The Royal Navy hatches a plot to increase his sentence by 140 years, knowing that he will escape to set out for his treasure. He does so, recruiting a motley crew of companions. He had left a map of the treasure in the chimney of his wife's pub, but she burned it. She then tells Yellowbeard that she had the map tattooed on their son's head. Things go wrong when his traitorous former bosun Mr. Moon (Boyle) takes over the ship. With the Head of the British Secret Service (Idle) hot on their trail, they eventually find the island, where the terrible despot "El Nebuloso" and his majordomo "El Segundo" (Cheech and Chong) have taken residence with the treasure, and the battle for the prize commences.
Installé à La Nouvelle-Orléans, le pirate français Jean Laffite contrôle toute la région, et tente de rester neutre dans le conflit qui oppose Américains et Britanniques. Mais son amour pour la fille du gouverneur Clairborne va l'obliger à prendre parti et à s'engager au côté du général américain Andrew Jackson...
Manuela Alva (Judy Garland), who lives in the small Caribbean village of Calvados, dreams of being swept away by the legendary Pirate, Mack "the Black" Macoco. However, her aunt and uncle (who have raised her) insist that she marry the town mayor, the rotund and bullying Don Pedro (Walter Slezak).
Alan Gaskell (Clark Gable) is the captain of a tramp steamer chugging between Singapore and Hong Kong. Dolly Portland (Jean Harlow) is Alan's former girlfriend who books passage on the steamer at the same time that another of Alan's former loves, aristocratic Sybil Barclay (Rosalind Russell), shows up. Jamesy McArdle (Wallace Beery) is a passenger, who is actually in league with a gang of pirates who plan to steal the gold shipment being carried on the steamer.
In 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars, British Royal Navy Captain Horatio Hornblower (Gregory Peck) commands the 38-gun frigate HMS Lydia on a lengthy secret mission to Central America. He is to provide arms and support to a megalomaniac named Don Julian Alvarado, who is calling himself "El Supremo" or "The Almighty" (Alec Mango), in his rebellion against Spain, an ally of Britain's enemy France. As Hornblower observes to First Lieutenant Bush (Robert Beatty), "War breeds strange allies."
In the Caribbean, late in the 18th century, Captain Vallo (Burt Lancaster), a pirate known as "The Crimson Pirate", and his crew capture a ship of the King's navy. The ship is carrying Baron Gruda (Leslie Bradley), the special envoy to the King, who is on his way to the Island of Cobra to help crush a rebellion by rebels opposed to the King's rule. Vallo proposes to make money by selling the weapons on the ship to El Libre, the leader of the rebels. Baron Gruda then proposes to pay Vallo money if he can capture El Libre and bring him to him. Vallo accepts and Baron Gruda and his crew are released, Vallo keeping their ship and releasing Gruda and his men onto his own. While some of the pirates complain that this is not pirate business, they soon come around when they find out the amount of money to be made.
Captain David O'Keefe (Burt Lancaster), seeking his fortune in the 19th century South Pacific, decides to enlist island natives to harvest copra, but runs into a wall of cultural problems. Backed by a Chinese dentist, he obtains a ship and sets about harvesting copra while fending off cantankerous native chieftains and ambitious German empire-builders. The natives, happy with their existence, see no reason to work hard to obtain copra, either for a German trading company or for O'Keefe. He finally motivates them by showing them how to produce large quantities of Rai stones, the stone money of Yap, their valued coinage.
In 17th century England, an Irish doctor named Peter Blood (Errol Flynn) is summoned to aid Lord Gildoy, a wounded patron who had participated in the Monmouth Rebellion. Arrested while performing his duties as a physician, he is convicted of treason against the King and sentenced to death by the infamous Judge Jeffreys. By the whim of King James II, who sees an opportunity for profit, Blood and the surviving rebels are transported to the West Indies to be sold into slavery.
Quelque part dans les Caraïbes, Dominique Quesada (Gilbert Roland) part, accompagné d'un ami Johnny Gray (Richard Egan), de l'épouse de celui-ci Thérésa (Jane Russell), d'un prêtre le père Cannon (Robert Keith) et de Gloria (Lorie Nelson), à la recherche de l'épave d'un galion espagnol. Échoué par les fonds depuis trois siècles, le bateau contient un fabuleux butin. Les trois aventuriers vont rencontrer bien des obstacles dans leur périlleuse chasse au trésor...
To avoid an arranged marriage to Don Carlos, an elderly Spanish duke, Princess Marie masquerades as her uncle's former servant, Marietta, and escapes from France on a ship with casquette girls who are traveling to New Orleans to marry colonists. On board, Marietta befriends Julie.
At the instigation of his half brother Lionel (Lloyd Hughes), Oliver Tressilian (Milton Sills), a wealthy baronet, is shanghaied and blamed for the death of Peter Godolphin (Wallace MacDonald), brother of Oliver's fiancée, whom Lionel actually has slain. At sea Oliver is captured by Spaniards and made a galley slave, but when he escapes to the Moors he becomes Sakr-el-Bahr, the scourge of Christendom. Learning of Rosamund's (Enid Bennett) impending marriage to his half brother, he kidnaps both of them, but to avoid the risk of giving her to Asad-ed-Din (Frank Currier), the Basha of Algiers, he surrenders to a British ship. Rosamund intercedes to save his life, and following the death of Lionel they are married.
The film begins with King Philip II of Spain (Montagu Love) declaring his intention to destroy England and after this "puny rockbound island as barren and treacherous as her Queen" is out of the way, he believes that world conquest will follow: he says his great wall map, one day, "will have ceased to be a map of the world; it will be Spain." He sends one of his courtiers, Don Alvarez (Claude Rains), as his ambassador to allay the suspicions of Queen Elizabeth I (Flora Robson) 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.
At the Durrisdeer estate in Scotland in 1745, Jamie Durie (Errol Flynn), his younger brother Henry (Anthony Steel) and their father Lord Durrisdeer (Felix Aylmer) receive news of the Jacobite rising. Their retainer, MacKellar (Mervyn Johns), recommends that one brother join the uprising while the other remains loyal to King George II, so that whichever side wins, the family's status and estate will be preserved. Both brothers want to go. Jamie insists on tossing a coin for the privilege and wins, despite the opposition of his fiancée, Lady Alison (Beatrice Campbell).
Oliver "Puddin' Head" Johnson (Lou Costello) and Rocky Stonebridge (Bud Abbott) are on their way to Death's Head Tavern, where they work. They encounter Lady Jane (Fran Warren), who asks them to bring a love note to the tavern singer, Bruce Martingale (Bill Shirley).