Directed by: Rowland V. Lee
Starring: Charles Laughton, Randolph Scott, John Carradine
Buckle down, today was a long day of work and I didn’t have anything to watch except for some old pirate/Bela Lugosi movies, so that’s what we’re in for today.
Captain Kidd is one of maybe four famous real-life pirates, and the only one without “beard” in his name. As far as Captain Kidd the film, I have no idea how much of the story is taken from historical accounts, nor do I really care. Kidd (Laughton) is a no-good scoundrel pirate… with a master plan and a lot of ambition. He hires a domestic servant to teach him how to act like a proper gentleman and he fools King William III into thinking that he’s an upstanding sailor, sending him out to escort a ship carrying a ton of treasure. Kidd’s crew consists of officers from a previous voyage who’s secondary mission is to dig up the treasure they buried and to add it to the treasure of this new ship. Also joining their crew is Adam Mercy (Scott), a rogue with a mysterious past. Everything goes according to Kidd’s plan for the most part, blowing up the other ship and stealing it’s treasure and knocking off a few of his old shipmates for a better piece of the treasure, until Mercy stumbles upon his plans.
This was actually a surprisingly good movie, and after looking at some of the names attached to it, that should come as no surprise. Oscar-winning Charles Laughton had been in tons of big name movies in big-name roles, though to be honest, I never really thought to look for him before. He turned in a stunning performance as the brusque-yet-clever pirate aiming to pass himself off as a law-abiding gentleman, and you really do empathize with him, despite how he’s supposed to be the bad guy. Randolph Scott you’ll probably recognize from about a hundred westerns from the 50’s and 60’s (if you’re into that kinda thing), and John Carradine was a sci-fi and horror staple, appearing in over 300 movies in his time. To give you an idea of how old this movie was, he didn’t even look a thousand years old!
If you like the subject material, and aren’t expecting anything along the lines of Johnny Depp fighting squid people, see if you can pick up a copy of Captain Kidd, probably at your local grocery store in the five movies for a dollar bin. Sad, isn’t it?
Films in Boxes 
April 26th, 2008 at 6:57 am
That’s a fun pirate film!
Pity is that the budget is obviously not too high, specially if you compare it with another Laughton naval movie like “Mutiny on the Bounty”. But I admit that I find more substance in “Captain Kidd” than in other recent productions, which are significatively more expensive and CGI-filled, but not necessarily much better than this honest B-movie
Hmmm… If you have enjoyed Laughton in this film, You should give a try to films like “This Land is Mine”, “Witness for the prosecution”, “Mutiny on the Bounty” or “The Big clock” (Sorry, this is me proselitizing ;D)