Captain Kidd

Dir: Rowland V. Lee

Filmed in 1945, this is a black and white swashbuckling adventure starring Randolph Scott (he plays the hero Adam Mercy) and Charles Laughton who plays the captain (see above image). Its a fairly run of the mill film, typical of the genre and the time in which it was made, which is to say, its a piss poor movie with few redeeming special effects, a nauseatingly predictable plot and not really worth the effort of straining one's attention long enough to view. Of particular annoyance is the ease with which the sanctimonious hero Adam Mercy, out wits Captain Kidd by deux ex machina and has the female role (played with mind numbing ineptitude by Barbara Britton) fawning over him for no other reason than his 'noble bearing'. No sooner does Lady Anne Dunstan meet Adam Mercy than she 'recognises him as a gentleman' leaving all Captain Kidd's nefarious plans void. Mercy is in fact the son of one of Kidd's victims seeking revenge by pretending to be a pirate, and despite his upper class accent and 'noble bearing', none of the pirates he is hiding amongst ever realize this. A suspension of the laws of disbelief so blatent that the character becomes an immediete thorn in one's side.

Its hard to believe that people in 1945 were so numb to the limits of cinema that they watched this sort of rubbish as entertainment. I guess when you've just won the worst war in history you don't care about such details and you want the good guys to be easy to spot and always winning, but I'll never understand why, if the criminal elements in this type of film are not allowed to win, then why bother making a pirate film!? Whats the bleeding point? Who cares about pirates who are bound by convention to lose? Its a mockery for any one entertaining the notion that Kidd's convoluted schemes can ever hope to thwart a brainless hero who wins simply because he is the hero. When conventional morality dictates nobility equals good and good equals winner, then whats the deal with making a film about a pirate captain?

Naturally I was rooting for the pirates the whole film through and gnashing my teeth at the sickening sight of ill deserved victory being handed down by the oh so noble king to his sycophantic subjects who manage to defeat the pirate captain with out even trying. Kidd strands the nepotistic bastards in Madagascar, sails back to England after having utterly out witted them and yet they still manage to reach the king and tell their tale first by no means satisfactorily explained. What? They have an aeroplane?

Intolerable!



edited to add:


The Scarlet Pirate

Dir: Robert Siodmak

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

If 'Captain Kidd' was bad, then this is worse, only here its in technicolour! In this swashbuckling tale, Burt Lancaster lives up to his gay icon status playing the ever bare chested Captain Vallo (a.k.a. the Crimson Pirate) who spends almost the entire film performing the sort of acrobatics one might usually associate with a circus. This film was made in 1952 and it shows. The tedious sermonizing is similar to that proudly displayed in Captain Kidd, but we have now progressed to the point where a film about a pirate captain, actually has the pirate as hero. The bad guy being an authority figure with no morals. Alas, Captain Vallo must still tread the righteous path of honesty and goodness to get the girl so he's a peculiar sort of buccaneer if you ask me, especially so when you consider the hysterically conservative females these films offer up as choice morsals for pirate appetites.

The film is pretty horrendous and despite its ambitious nature fails to deliver in the special effects department. Amazingly the effects and props in this film are no where near as good as in 'Captain Kidd'. Captain Vallo's ship in particular is a most bizzare spectacle appearing to be a rebuilt fishing boat of some kind.




Long John Silver

Dir: Byron Haskin

Made a mere two years after 'The Scarlet Pirate', this film is about as far from the swashbuckling extravaganza as its possible to get since the main character has lost a leg and doesn't seem to fancy the mass produced heroines of other pirate films. No indeed, Long John's fancy turns to a woman who's rear end is as big as a golf course and naturally when the prospect of treasure comes his way, he quickly discards any notions of romance and sails his way as a good pirate should! For this alone I grant this film three stars. The fact that I just happen to approve of well endowed females with acres of cotton stretched across their curvacious physical attributes is neither here nor there! The fact of the matter is Robert Newton is the best pirate captain in this particular trio of films. He plays his role almost as easily as Walther Matthau plays Captain Red and Johnny Depp plays Captain Jack Sparrow

This film is meant to be a sequel to Treasure Island and see's the worthy captain returning to find the rest of Flint's treasure. Whether or not he finds it is up to you to discover. You'll not pry the answer from me matey, d'ya see the course I lay!?