The Crimson Pirate (1952)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Filmographies-Cast
Rating
Year Of Production	1952
Running Time	104:16
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Robert Siodmak
Studio Distributor	Beyond Home Entertainment	Starring	Burt Lancaster Nick Cravat Eva Bartok Torin Thatcher James Hayter Leslie Bradley Margot Grahame Noel Purcell Frederick Leister Eliot Makeham Frank Pettingell
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	William Alwyn

Back when I was a kid and movies didn't come on VHS tapes let alone shiny discs (showing my age now aren't I?) I loved watching adventure movies on Saturday or Sunday afternoon on TV. My most enduring memory of those films is this little ripper from 1952, The Crimson Pirate. I remember when I first saw it I was captivated by this funny, adventurous and action packed film about pirates and their enemies, the servants of the King. I have watched it a number of times but have not been able to get it on DVD until now. I was really pleased when I saw that Beyond Home Entertainment was releasing it onto the local Region 4 market and can say that they have done quite a respectable job. This film was one of Burt Lancaster's early starring roles and helped to establish him as one of Hollywood's biggest stars. His background as a circus performer before starting his movie career is strongly to the fore here with lots of acrobatics and rope swinging on display. This was aided and abetted by his co-star Nick Cravat, another actor with acrobatics in his background. According to what I read, both of them do nearly all of the stunts (of which there are quite a few) and they ended up making nine films together.

The story involves a pirate, Captain Vallo AKA The Crimson Pirate (Lancaster), who commands a small crew of pirates in the Caribbean in the Eighteenth Century. With his mute offsider, Ojo (Cravat), and first mate, Humble Bellows (Torin Thatcher) they are a scourge to the local authorities. At the beginning of the film they use a clever ruse to capture one of the King's ships on its way to port. It contains the King's envoy, Baron Gruda (Leslie Bradbury) along with thousands of muskets, barrels of gunpowder and other weaponry. Vallo decides to try and sell the weapons to local revolutionaries led by El Libre and then, after luring him out, to sell him and the weapons back to Baron Gruda. Of course, this is complicated by the entry into the story of El Libre's daughter, Consuelo (Eva Bartok), who Vallo immediately falls for. Of course, Vallo & Ojo lead the authorities a merry dance, outwitting and outfighting them. There are lots of adventures, double crosses and fun to be had right up to and including the over the top ending featuring submarines, hot air balloons and nitro-glycerine.

This film is heaps of fun with excellent action scenes, sight gags, funny chase scenes and much more. It is very suitable for the whole family with very little anyone could find offensive, fulfilling the requirements of a G rating from the OFLC. Burt Lancaster and Nick Cravat are a marvellous team, with the handsome and acrobatic Lancaster ably supported by the strong and funny Cravat. Bartok is suitably feisty as the revolutionary Consuelo. There is lots of cheese of course but this is all part of the fun, kicking off with Lancaster welcoming the audience direct to camera. It was filmed on location in Italy and in the studio in the UK. The director was the same one as for Lancaster's first starring role (The Killers), Robert Siodmak. The movie moves along well and the only possible criticism is that perhaps by modern standards it is a little too long, but this is only true for the ADD generation.

A hugely entertaining swashbuckling adventure for the whole family. Highly Recommended.

Video

    The feature is presented in 1.33:1 and is obviously not 16x9 enhanced widescreen. This is close to the original aspect ratio of 1.37:1. The picture is presented with very small black bars on all sides which will probably not be visible on most displays. I believe that this transfer is an NTSC to PAL conversion rather than a native PAL transfer based on run time.

    The picture was reasonably clear and sharp throughout. Shadow detail was quite reasonable for the age of film.

    The colour was quite good although outdoor scenes were somewhat duller than studio scenes and there was some cross-colouration such as at 23:10.

    Artefacts include some mild background grain, interlacing artefacts due to the conversion, some juddery pans (possibly also due to the conversion), some aliasing such as at 11:50 and 37:40, some telecine wobble (21:15) and a fair smattering of film artefacts (e.g., spots at 11:30 and 38:30).

    There are no subtitles which is a shame as I am sure many who remember this film from their youth may need subtitles these days.

    There is no layer change as this is a DVD5.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio is good.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was mostly clear and easy to understand. Some accents and pirate talking were somewhat challenging. There are minor sync problms probably due to ADR.

    The suitably heroic and fun score by William Alwyn sounds quite good but sometimes is a little strident.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is still and silent, featuring an original movie poster.

Burt Lancaster Filmography

    Text listing of selected Lancaster Films. Try www.imdb.com instead.

    The Region 1 version also only features text extras which sound slightly different. Draw.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is good.

    No extras of note.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall