SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Organnall Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

mmallon4 At the beginning of The Pirate we learn Manuela (Judy Garland) has a life of servitude ahead of her while she yearns for a life of adventure. She desires to be taken away by the legendary Mack the Black, swooning over dreams of stolen treasure, maidens captive, of villages destroyed; kind of twisted don't you think? Regardless I don't think anyone can project an innocent yearning for adventure better than Judy Garland. The Pirate was a different role for Garland; more exotic, less girl next door and more grown up. For once she plays the object of desire and I find she pulls this off perfectly as although I've never found Garland to be a woman of sexual appeal, I do find her one of great beauty (why she was ever referred to as an ugly duckling is beyond me). At heart however Manuela is still very much a Judy Garland character, a down to Earth girl with aspirations for greater things.The title of The Pirate could come off as misleading. Gene Kelly isn't a pirate but rather a performer named Serafin masquerading as one. No the pirate of The Pirate is Mack the Black, whom in a odd turn of events is actually the man Manuela is going to wed in an arranged marriage known as Don Pedro, the mayor of a small Caribbean town who has put his life of crime behind him and kept it a secret. The Pirate is enhanced on second viewing knowing the true identity of Don Pedro as he speaks of his dislike of travelling on the sea and telling Manuela home is the perfect spot; remind you of another Judy Garland film? There is even a moment in which Manuela frantically tells Auntie Inez (Gladys Cooper) she wants to go home which feels like Wizard of Oz redux. The second half of the pirate is one huge comic, screwball like farce which doesn't fully work for me; it's amusing but not so much laugh out loud making me prefer the first half to the second. The Pirate shows Gene Kelly had the ability to be a natural swashbuckler while his introductory sequence in which he gives a lengthy monologue promoting his acting troupe has to be one of his most entertaining non-musical moments on screen. However what really makes his role in The Pirate stand out among his other films is the oozing sexuality he projects on screen; more than any other film he did. Serafin is a real Don Juan with his Gable like moustache as well as with his tightly fit pirate attire and the wipe he is seen sporting in the film (plus that cigarette trick, what a play-a!) His introductory song Nina is one steamy number with Kelly flirting and dancing with oodles of women (just look at that state his hair is in by the end of the number) while the topical setting just enhances the eroticism. The Pirate is another movie in the "how did they get away with that club". You can censor all you want but you can't tell someone to simply stop projecting natural sexuality. Although Judy and Gene do display affection for each other at points in the film, the romantic element of The Pirate comes off to me as secondary. Serafin pursues Manuela for reasons other than love as he can tell she is going into a life she doesn't want due to his ability to know an entire woman through their body language. This gives his character another element and shows he isn't totally shallow and just out to get laid; he wants to prevent Manuela from going down a path she doesn't want to and expose the adventuress that she is as well as her hidden performing talents. By the end it's evident they share a more of a professional association than a romantic one, nor is there even a final kiss between the two.Mack the Black is the musical highlight of the film and an interesting change of pace seeing Judy Garland doing a more racy number. Mack the Black was the replacement for a number titled Voodoo of which the negatives where burned at Louis B Mayer's instance over the number's reportedly scandalous content. Would it be considered shocking by today's standards, was it even that shocking to begin with? - One can only imagine. As the audio still survives, the song itself is one of the darker, more eerie songs in the MGM library but doesn't strike me particularly memorable. Perhaps going with Mack the Black was the right decision after all. Be a Clown on the other hand is notably the basis for the song Make 'em Laugh from Singin' In the Rain and plagiarised it may be, Make 'em Laugh is a far superior rendition in my view. The ballet sequence in The Pirate however is a treat with a real sense of three dimensional depth. The sequence with its many explosions and Gene Kelly's masculine athleticism makes for one of the more primal musical numbers in film history.The production values of The Pirate aren't quite up to MGM's usual standard with clear dividing lines on the sky backgrounds, visible wires holding Gene Kelly on the tight rope and even a very visible thread attached to Judy's hat as its hoisted away by the wind. Come on MGM, you can do better than that. Ultimately The Pirate is not my favourite MGM musical but is unique enough to make it worthwhile.

Michael_Elliott Pirate, The (1948) ** 1/2 (out of 4)With stars Gene Kelly and Judy Garland, song writer Cole Porter and director Vincente Minnelli, you can tell MGM went all out on this production but it turned out to be a financial disaster and it didn't help matters that Garland was going through one of the most difficult periods of her life. The film's story is pretty simple as Garland is about to be married off to a Mayor who she doesn't really love but before she is she meets the dashing performance played by Kelly. The rest of the film has him trying to steal her heart while singing and dancing countless tunes. Having watched a couple documentaries on Garland this film became one that I was dying to see and the end result left me pretty disappointed. There's no question that the film offers some fine moments and these moments make the film worth viewing at least once but at the same time the story is so weak and the trouble production can clearly be seen on the screen. Just take a look at one of the best moments in the film, which is when Kelly gets to perform one last time and does a version of Be a Clown. Apparently this number wasn't originally going to be in the movie but Kelly got his way and ended up delivering one of the most memorable sequences with some great vocals and a nice little dance sequence. This great scene also has some weak moments mainly being how it's obvious Garland is no where on the set. This is so obvious because of the style of the editing, which, after a while, becomes rather annoying. The constant cutaways just didn't work for me and this type of thing is going on throughout the movie. Apparently Garland ended up missing nearly one hundred days worth of shooting and it's obvious. Even in some of the scenes she's in it appears she's really out of it as she doesn't have that full, 100% Judy touch. That being said, she does have a few good moments here, mainly at the very end when she joins Kelly on the Be a Clown number. Kelly is the real star here as his dance sequences are extremely impressive (as usual) and he gets several good numbers including Nina early on in the film. Minnelli's direction is good throughout and he keeps the film moving even as the weak screenplay tries to drag everything down. I think the comic nature of the screenplay never really comes across and we're left with a rather flat "joke" about who the bandit pirate really is and this never really grabs ones attention. The screenplay isn't horrible but at the same time it's just not interesting enough to make one really take notice of the film. Kelly makes it worth viewing at least once but this is certainly far from classic MGM.

writers_reign The main (sorry about that) attraction for me was the Cole Porter score and whilst he was incapable of writing mediocre it does fall woefully short of the very next score he wrote directly for the screen some seven years later, namely High Society. Judy Garland isn't exactly chopped liver either if anyone asks you yet here she was strangely ineffective and insipid. Kelly was always a bad nowhere to Fred Astaire and this is borne out by the movie Judy made with Fred that very same year, Easter Parade. Having got the caveats out of the way I must give a nod to what the film was attempting - no less than a send-up of those Douglas Fairbanks Senior silent swashbucklers and the flamboyant 'actor' style of Jack Barrymore. Perhaps the problem lies with the source material, a creaky old war-horse that had provided a hit for the Lunts a few years earlier, which asks us to believe that a dashing, ruthless pirate would abandon the sea and metamorphose into Walter Slezak who is now so legit he even has a lawyer. Producer Arthur Freed, a minor lyricist himself, cheerfully helped himself to Porter's melody Be A Clown and wrote new lyrics with never so much as an acknowledgment, let alone a thank you, which he titled Make 'Em Laugh' and interpolated into Singin' In The Rain which he produced four years later. Pirate indeed.

bkoganbing Gene Kelly and Judy Garland stepped into some mighty big shoes when they accepted the lead roles in The Pirate. On Broadway, The Pirate ran in the 1942-43 season for 177 performances and the shoes that Kelly and Garland were filling belonged to Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne. True it's probably one of the lighter vehicles that Lunt and Fontanne ever did, still it might have been interesting to compare what they did with the snappy dialog of S.N. Behrmann.Cole Porter signed on to write the score for this musical adaption of The Pirate. Porter had been in a creative dry spell for a few years, most notoriously he was associated with a flop musical based on Around The World In 80 Days, a couple of years back. Believe it or not, he was having trouble getting work in Hollywood and on Broadway when he signed with MGM for The Pirate.According to the George Eells biography of Porter, it was Gene Kelly who asked Porter to write a clown number for him and Judy Garland. Porter responded with Be A Clown which turned out to be the hit of the film. The rest of the score is not top drawer Porter, but mediocre Cole Porter is better than most songwriters can come up with.Judy Garland plays another starry eyed youngster in The Pirate which is set in the 18th century Caribbean. She's first seen reading what would later be called a dime novel about the legendary Makoko the Pirate. She's getting into an arranged marriage with the mayor of the town, staid and settled Walter Slezak. When a troupe of strolling players led by Gene Kelly come to town, under hypnosis she reveals that she longs to be the bride of Makoko. What's Gene Kelly to do, but pretend to be Makoko.That's all well and good except that Walter Slezak is the real Makoko now just trying to live in peaceful obscurity away from the authorities who want to hang him. All this leads to some interesting complications that of course get all sorted out in the end.Judy gets to do two ballads in her unmistakable style, Love Of My Life and You Can Do No Wrong. And she stars in a rousing production number where the proclaims her enchantment with the legendary Makoko in Mack The Black. The film got a tepid response in 1948, it's given far better critical notice in retrospect. The Pirate was produced by MGM's legendary Arthur Freed and his unit and directed stylishly by Vincent Minnelli who was Judy Garland's husband at the time. Today's audiences would far better appreciate the combined wit of S.N. Behrmann and Cole Porter.As for Porter, his next writing assignment would stop all talk of his going into decline. The following year Kiss Me Kate debuted on Broadway which was Porter's biggest critical and commercial success. No one ever said that score wasn't up to his usual standard.