Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

JohnHowardReid If ever there was an "almost best" movie, Corsair is it! Chester Morris never gave a more vigorous performance, Fred Kohler was never more hissable, and Thelma Todd was never more sexy. But, putting the leads to one side, the movie also represents the crowning acting achievements of Frank Rice and Mayo Methot. Ned Sparks and Emmett Corrigan just miss the top rung – Sparks because he was later to better his role in this one, and Corrigan because he fails to communicate a vital turn in the script. Maybe he was unaware of this, or maybe West wrote the screenplay on the run. But it does make the screenplay's last minute revelation seem rather weak and forced. Also, as other critics have pointed out, the Fred Kohler plot is left hanging and not brought to its expected conclusion. But otherwise, Corsair is a thrilling gangsters-on-the-high-seas movie, pacily directed, admirably enacted and loaded with visible and highly engaging talent on both sides of the camera.This movie is currently available on two rival DVD labels. So which is the better? It depends what you're looking for. If you want a nice clear, clean, complete, black-and-white print, then Alpha has just what you want. On the other hand, if you'd prefer to see the movie just as it was issued to theatres back in 1931, with all its tinted sequences intact (despite a few scratch marks here and there), then Grapevine is your choice. Me? I choose Grapevine!

mark.waltz That's how the villain in this film describes his gang of cut-throats, and 80 years later, there's even more modern methods to piracy, so that analyzation is quite a coincidence. Here is the story of a college football hero (Chester Morris) who is so angered by his greedily powerful boss that he plots revenge on him and lands a twist on the powerful Wall Street broker (Emmett Corrigan) that might have you howling in delight, especially considering that 80 years later, the same things are still happening on Wall Street with even more diabolical results.Morris can't help but be attracted to the Wall Street broker's spoiled ninny of a daughter (Thelma Todd, billed as as Alison Loyd), a selfish sort who, like Carmen, gets more intrigued by the man every time he rejects her or treats her worse. She's engaged to an effeminate dapper dan, and at one point, even asks him if he's really her fiancée or just experimenting. So of course, this is pre-code, and has some genuinely delicious pre-code references as it deals with the piracy of bootlegging. The Walter Matthau of the 1930's, Ned Sparks, is on hand as Morris's grouchy sidekick, with Mayo Methot as his moll whom Sparks orders to make love to a rather ugly pirate nicknamed "Fish Face" (Frank Rice). The future Mrs. Bogart has a truly amazing moment when she follows her lover's orders with shocking results.Then there's Frank McHugh, on loan from Warner Brothers and giving his signature "ha ha ha" laugh, as Morris's classmate who sticks by him until the end. The film is interesting because it takes the bootlegging angle away from street gangsters, replacing them with pirates. There is an ocean-set battle between the two different gangs of bootleggers which provides much excitement and gives a modern twist on the old pirate tradition of walking the plank.

csteidler The early moments of Corsair offer a big buildup for our first look at Alison Loyd: we can hear her conversation with dance partner Frank McHugh, but our only view is of the back of her head. A moment later she is introduced to football hero Chester Morris, and again, she speaks unseen….until finally, in close up, her big smile flashes onto the screen. –Of course, it's Thelma Todd's smile. This big introduction apparently aims at establishing Todd as a mysterious and glamorous figure; presumably, this is why Todd is billed as "Alison Loyd" for the first and (I think) only time—to differentiate her "new" persona from the light comic actress Thelma Todd had been (and would continue to be, thank heavens!).Unfortunately, the plot and dialog of Corsair offer Todd/Loyd little else to do besides smile and act alternately spoiled and silly. Her character is a major motivator to the actions of other characters—but she really does little and develops less herself. Which is too bad! Director Roland West didn't do Thelma justice by setting her up as a dangerous female and then giving her practically no depth, surprises or even decent lines to speak.Chester Morris comes off better as a football hero turned banker turned pirate. Fired from his broker job for being unwilling to steal a little old lady's savings, he sets out to prove the boss banker wrong in his assertion that Morris doesn't have the nerve to be successful. Nerve? Morris sets up a booze pirating operation that is daring, dangerous and profitable…and sells the banker liquor by the boatload. The middle section of the movie builds tension around Morris's organization and the danger he faces as his victims—a gang of smugglers themselves—eventually catch on to his operation and hatch plans to capture and wipe him out. Indeed, it turns into a pretty good adventure movie once it gets rolling.Frank McHugh adds liveliness in his role as Morris's right hand man. Fred Kohler is appropriately menacing as "Big John" the smuggler. Morris, a solid lead, gives an excellent performance as a man who chooses and sticks to his own unique code of conduct.The scenes between Morris and Todd ought to be the highlights of a film like this….but it's just the opposite. They speak so slowly…how do you make Chester Morris and Thelma Todd into slow talkers? –It's not just a function of the movie being an early talkie, either; there's a deliberateness to these scenes apparently meant to be serious and dramatic—and instead, all it does is drag. As an adventure, it's not bad. But darn, in the "dramatic" sections, this is a movie in bad need of some zippy dialog.

Alonzo Church Ex-football player Chester Morris, egged on by rich girl Thelma Todd, tries bootlegging and piracy as a career. Will he continue to triumph over the villainous gangsters whose cargoes he hijacks, with friends Ned Sparks and Frank McHugh, or will Big John get his revenge on the crew of the CORSAIR? This isn't a great work of art, and no new ground is broken. But once the plot gets rolling (it takes about a reel), this is a darn good action flick with a nice straightforward leading-man performance out of Morris, a surprisingly sympathetic turn out of Ned Sparks, and much of the fluid, frequently beautiful camera work and staging that is characteristic of director Roland West. Mayo Methot probably gets the best acting scene, and, in this case, is helped by her director, who has the sense to let the scene play out with simple lighting and staging. The director, indeed, helps himself by downplaying some of the camera showiness on films like Alibi and The Bat, and by improving, significantly, his direction of actors and his pacing of the story.We do not have a perfect film here. Thelma Todd is around to look pretty, but she had not found her dramatic acting chops at the time this movie was shot. Also, the ending of the movie is utterly wrong and too drawn out. But in its middle reels, this movie is as spry and well-paced as a typical Warners movie, and suggests that Morris could have had a much better movie career with more films like this. Worth seeing -- particularly if you think 1931 movies are all people standing around and declaiming while the camera stays put.