Search - The Pirate on DVD

"I KNOW THERE'S A PRACTICAL WORLD AND A DREAM WORLD, I SHAN'

DEWEY MEE | ELLENSBURG, WA, | 08/06/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Gene Kelly and Judy Garland mix music by Cole Porter and romance in a lush Carribbean setting in this lavish MGM fantasy. Director Vincente Minnelli's color pallette is the most vibrant and bold use of Technicolor since "THE WIZARD OF OZ." Sounds like this had all the ingredients for success. But "THE PIRATE" was plagued with difficulties from conception to completion. This romantic fantasy has always existed in a cloud of controversies;

having equally fierce detractors and admirers. I'm so glad it has finally been released on DVD. It seems like I have waited forever!! I have always enjoyed this film tremendously. It is, simply, a tremendously enjoyable film. The participants in the DVD, including Liza Minnelli and John Fricke, fall all over themselves explaining why "THE PIRATE" was too stylized and too special to appeal to a mass audience in 1948. Fear not, current-day viewers, "THE PIRATE" is not a celluloid disaster-- and not nearly as inaccessable as history would lead us to believe. Gene Kelly's widow, for instance, thinks "THE PIRATE" is deserving of a deeper appreciation, and she is right on the money. When the dust from all the controversies has finally vanished, it turns out that this is one of the best films in the careers of both Kelly and Garland.

Gene Kelly actually plays two roles. He plays egotistical, womanizing actor Serafin in the style of John Barrymore. Serafin calls all woman "Nina." But his womanizing ways abruptly end when he sets eyes on Manuella Alva (Judy). Manuella despises Sarafin because he is a "common actor." She is positively obsessed however, with legendary pirate Mack The Black Macoco, famous throughout the Carribbean for his daring and adventurous exploits. To win her, Sarafin pretends to be Mack The Black himself, whom Kelly plays in the style of Douglas Fairbanks. When Manuella discovers Sarafin's various deceptions, she is furious. She at first appeals to his vanity and then throws everything that is not nailed down at him! Sarafin's deceptions nearly get him hanged. The deceptions might have worked, but Manuella's fiance, the fat and pompous Don Pedro (Walter Slezak) has a major secret of his own.

Gene Kelly put the blame for "THE PIRATE'S" initial failure squarely upon himself: "It didn't occur to us until after the picture hit the public that what we had done was a huge inside joke," he said. "The sophisticates probably grasped it-- all three of them-- but the film died in the hinterlands. It was done tongue-in-cheek, but it didn't come off, and that's my fault. But I thought Judy was superb (and) what Minnelli did with color and

design in that film is as fine as anything that has ever been done."

Kelly is not being fair to himself. History has blamed all of "THE PIRATE'S" problems on Judy Garland, and that is not fair, either. The film came at a particularly bad time for her. MGM had become a house of horrors for Judy by that time, and her marriage to Minnelli was in disrepair. She had valiantly stayed off the prescription pills MGM had hooked her on long ago during the early days of her marriage and throughout her pregnancy with daughter Liza Minnelli. She returned to pills out of a sense of mounting, crippling insecurities, and this resulted in irratic behaviors on set. It is a lasting testament to Judy's incomparable artistry and professionalism that she always kept her inner demons and turmoil entirely off camera. Her personal unhappiness is nowhere evident in the finished film.

Judy displays a natural, regretfully under-used, gift for farce and slapstick comedy. Her comedic timing is perfect throughout. Indeed, without Judy Garland, "THE PIRATE" might well be a cult film without a cult, as John Fricke has stated. There are certain echoes of Dorothy Gale from Kansas and "THE WIZARD OF OZ" in Manuella Alva. Like Dorothy, Manuella is told that Home is the perfect spot to be. Gladys Cooper, who was forever playing aunt, mother, sister, or wife, to practically everyone who ever trafficed in Hollywood, plays Manuella's Aunt Inez. Manuella even says to her Aunt Inez, "I know there's a practical world and a dream world. I shan't mix them!" She also later screams, "Aunt Inez! Aunt Inez! I want to go home!!" But, where Dorothy is definitely a girl, Manuella is definitelly a desireable woman who, as Sarafin suggests, does not find enough romance in her daydreams. Under hypnosis, she shouts at Sarafin, "Don't call me pure soul. It irriates me. Underneath this prim exterior there are depths of emotions, romantic longings!" Judy looks gorgeous and is photographed beautifully here, but Minnelli seems to favor Gene Kelly in most shots. Kelly has never danced more athletically or looked more sexy on film than he does here. At one point in the film, the male viceroy gazes at Kelly longingly and says delightedly and lustfully, "You fill the eye!"

Perhaps "THE PIRATE'S" problems rested with MGM boss L.B. Mayer's stubborn refusal to allow the two adult stars to be adults. Wheras Kelly theorized that the general public always wanted to see him as the guy next door who dances, he also thought L.B. Mayer forever saw Judy as a little girl forever marching down Main Street, U.S.A. "THE PIRATE" took both Gene and Judy into deciedly more sexy territory, and Mayer wanted every MGM picture to be a "Family Picture." When Mayer deemed the number "Voodoo" too erotic, he ordered that the negative be burned, and Kelly was called into the office for a lecture on how to dance appropriately for the screen. "Voodoo" was at first re-cut to be "less sexy", and finally cut out altogether after the Second preview. It is replaced by Judy's manic, frenetic showstopper "Mack The Black," which also gets an extra "Stereo Remix" version on the DVD. Surprisingly, Kelly's wild "Pirate Ballet", where he dances in and around fiery explosions, was also cut at a second preview. Was it too sexy as well? The dance was thankfully and hastily put back in after a viewer commented he missed Gene Kelly in a big dance number and said, "Something about a pirate would have been good."

Another preview viewer begged on the comment card that Judy Garland be put in something more "human... and give Mr. Minnelli back to the small minority that appreciate him." Another comment card wistfully asked if

Gene Kelly could "be just a trifle not so feminine!"

John Fricke provides an excellent DVD Audio Commentary Track; as he also does on "FOR ME AND MY GAL,"

"EASTER PARADE", and "THE WIZARD OF OZ." In the end, Fricke asks exactly what is "THE PIRATE". "Is it Gene Kelly's runaway triumph? Is it Minnelli's dream vision unsurpassed? Is it Judy Garland's film?" Fortunately, "THE PIRATE" can finally be enjoyed as all three of these things--as a glittering showcase for three of MGM's greatest talents:

Gene, Judy, and Mr, Minnelli.

In keeping with Warner/MGM's superb repackaging of the movie-going experience of the past, the DVD also includes a Short Subject, a "Tom And Jerry" Cartoon, a "Making Of" featurette, audio out-takes, and radio interviews."