Pirates of Tortuga

source: Pirates of Tortuga

Trailer—Pirates of Tortuga

Pirates of Tortuga

A movie I wish I had not watched, on a par with Transylvania 6-5000 for poor movie making. The acting was atrocious from the start but was eclipsed by the extremely poorly written script and storyline. I think any twelve-year-old child after attending Treasure Island could write a better storyline before they went to bed. This is probably the best example of everything wrong with Hollywood TV movies.

This movie would have been okay if it had better actors. It would have been hilarious if it had better screenwriters. As it is, it is neither.

Bart Paxton, an English captain with a distinct American accent, is assigned to take piratecHenry Morgan out of commission by being a more efficient pirate, leaving the authorities with plausible deniability. Things get complicated when a floozy stows away. Like many British movies of the time, this one aimed to getvsome US marketability by headlining an American star. In this case, they went with Ken Scott. Yes, that's what I thought, too. For all that it's cheap and cheerful, this isn't bad and, by dint of judicious used of pilfered footage from elsewhere, colourful cinematography, good sets and decent minatures, not to mention a plot with some interesting if irrelevant digressions, it makes its small budget go a long way. So thanks to Youtube!

This was an entertaining movie. And isn't that what it's all about. Nothing original, or exceptional acting. But it was fun. Letícia Román is clearly a foreign actress (Italian). I thought her lines were dubbed. And it may have been. She did a fine job. All the other actors were fine. I don't care about using footage from other movies. It was done well. Rating is a 5 or 6 stars for entertainment. Nothing to go out of your way to seek out. If it's on tv, watch it as a comedy and it will work.

Ken Scott and a mass of little-known actors perform in a Sam Katzman sea-faring fest, with never an eyepatch, arrgh or yo-heave-ho among them. They've been ordered to head to the Caribbean Sea, to deal with Henry Morgan, who's exceeding his authority or something. Letícia Román has snuck onboard for reasons that are never clear. It's actually a visually handsome movie, thanks to cinematographer Ellis Carter, and handsome sets and costumes. It definitely falls into the seen-one-seen-them-all category, and several screenwriters, including Jesse Lasky Jr. never produce anything interesting. However, Hortense Petra is credited down the cast list, and for a name like that, I'll pronounce this a decent time-waster: a triumph for Katzman.

Captain and his crew just returning to England are forced to go back out to take on the villainous Captain Morgan who is based in Tortuga . He once had a deal with the Brits but things have gone sour and he's raiding every British ship he can come across. Add to the mix a stowaway wench who has eyes for the captain and you're in for a rather superficial evening at the movies. Sue me the film never clicked with me. Its not that the action is bad, its not, its just that the plot doesn't really hold your interest. At times it's too much talk and not enough action, especially in the early going. Worse still is the cast who while adequate, are never really engaging and it's not really a wonder that I never really recall seeing any of them in anything else. I never really cared and despite the film looking good I allowed my attention to wander to other things.

It has been a long time since I've seen this film, over 20 yrs in fact, but there were bits of detail that made it stick in my mind this long. For instance, the character named PeeWee had a distinctive style of sword fighting: he had the rapier or saber in the right hand but he wore a black glove on his left. After some research, I found the glove was used to bat away the blade and acted as a main gouche. Those types of details kept me watching the screen and firmly seated it in my memory. It was a typical pirate movie with the usual stereotypical roles, but it was fun to watch and little bits of the unusual peeked out here and there. I wish I had a chance to watch it again.