Erich Wolfgang Korngold's score to The Sea Hawk, a 1940 Warner Bros. action film, represents a peak of Hollywood "Golden Age" film scoring. Nearly 40 years later it proved to be a work of unexpected influence.

In 1940, when Korngold chose to work on The Sea Hawk, he had already written outstanding scores for Errol Flynn's films The Adventures of Robin Hood and Captain Blood. The story of The Sea Hawk has elements of both pictures, plus the ambience of another Warner costume hit, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. (In fact, sets and costumes for that film were still around and were used in this film.) In it, Flynn plays British sea captain Thorpe, based on the historical Sir Frances Drake. Thorpe has the combined qualities of the heroic pirate Captain Blood and of Robin Hood, for Thorpe's plundering of the rich, arrogant Spaniards is motivated by devotion to the British throne and by his hatred of tyranny and injustice. The film also had a superior script. Korngold wrote 106 minutes of music for its 126-minute length. He used the full Warner Bros. orchestra of 54 players, plus exotic percussion instruments in the sequences set in Panama.

The music is lushly romantic, full of sweeping themes and stirring action. The Sea Hawk incorporates many of the signature aspects of Korngold's style: a dramatic use of chromaticism, an abundance of memorable melodies, and the use of leitmotives, beginning with the bright fanfare that opens the film. One particularly beautiful melody, the lute song for the character Marie, was later recycled by the composer for use in his Five Songs for voice and piano, Op. 38. Korngold's typically imaginative use of orchestral color is evident throughout the score. Korngold employed four assistants to orchestrate the score according to his sketches and under his supervision. Korngold received his fifth Academy Award nomination for the score.

There are two versions of the finale of the film, one for the British release (including a wartime patriotic speech by Queen Elizabeth) and a shorter American version.

The most common concert arrangement of the music includes the opening titles, a lyrical section that includes the love music and song (the melody of which Korngold had composed when he was 14), and the American version of the finale.

The appearance of Korngold's music for The Sea Hawk on RCA Victor's Classic Film Score series in the 1970s attracted the attention of George Lucas. When he engaged John Williams to score the first Star Wars film, he asked him to compose (instead of modernistic "sci-fi" sounds or the recent song-oriented sound track style), a Romantic swashbuckler score like The Sea Hawk. Williams' success in recapturing Korngold's style effected a new respect in Hollywood for this kind of symphonic score.

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