Dancing Pirate Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Dancing Pirate Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 10, 2022

When a Blu-ray disc comes with a supplemental featurette produced expressly for the release entitled Ambushed by Mediocrity, you can probably reasonably assume that the actual movie being offered is not exactly a masterpiece. Dancing Pirate might have been something a bit more exciting, given the fact that it was only the third live action three strip Technicolor film made and boasted a couple of songs by then "it team" Rodgers and Hart. Instead, some less than convincing casting in lead roles and a somewhat dowdy production design for a supposedly "lavish musical" end up weighing down what was evidently planned to be an ebullient, lighter than air enterprise. Michael Schlesinger provides the analysis on Ambushed by Mediocrity, and he suggests that Dancing Pirate is the film (or at least the kind of film) being parodied in another Technicolor musical extravaganza, Singin' in the Rain, even though this film's 1936 production year would suggest it didn't really appear at the dawn of the talkie period. Dancing Pirate offers the now largely forgotten (some would say with good reason) Charles Collins, an actor, singer and dancer who is perhaps best remembered (if he is at all) for his Broadway work rather than his spotty film appearances. Collins is just undeniably stiff in this role, though he occasionally manages to offer a light comedic reading of some lines. His love interest in the film is played by an actress probably consigned even further into "who?" territory than Collins, Steffi Duna. That leaves most of the interest for classic film fans arguably in the hands of an admittedly fun supporting cast, which includes The Wizard of Oz himself, Frank Morgan (second billed, even above Duna) and other fun folks from the Golden Age of Hollywood, including Luis Alberni. A young Rita Hayworth can be spotted as a dancer in some of the ensemble numbers, for those wanting a little more trivial pursuit action.

Jonathan Pride (Charles Collins) is an early 19th century dance instructor in Boston, trying to get descendants of the Puritans to engage in a little waist holding as he teaches them how to waltz. After a lesson which provides the opening scene of the film, Pride is promptly kidnapped by a band of pirates, and we next find him as what amounts to an indentured slave aboard a ship, where fitful attempts at comedy are made as Pride is tasked with sharpening various blades for a bunch of gnarly types who of course think he's sharpening the wrong items and keep urging him to switch to what they want. Suffice it to say that Pride is able to jump out of the fire of being an enslaved pirate and into the frying pan of a Californian village still under "foreign" rule, that is, if you can buy Frank Morgan as a Spaniard named Don Emilio Perena, the town's Mayor and/or Alcalde. The Alcalde's daughter Serifina (Steffi Dura), who at least seems a little "ethnic" (at least when compared to Morgan), meets cute with Pride when he's supposedly attacking the place (he's actually just trying to get away from all the mayhem), and while many obstacles of course intrude, you can sense where the story's going almost from the get go.

One of the pull quotes (perhaps saliently unattributed) on the back cover of this release states that Collins was like "Douglas Fairbanks in his most acrobatic days", and while that may be true in terms of some of Collins' movements in dance sequences, the "action" elements here and specifically some of the fight scenes are almost comically inept looking. When you have a supposed rugged hero type breaking into tap at the end of a noose or even more weirdly interrupting a "meeting" by some Native Americans with more dance moves, the effect can't help but be humorous, though these seem to be moments that were not designed to evoke guffaws.

Along with the whole disconnect between the decidedly Caucasian seeming Don Emilio Perena and his just as decidedly Hispanic-ish (?) daughter Serifina, there's the whole aspect of a supporting cast that features an almost bizarre assortment of supposed nationalities, with some of the humor decidedly forced and awkward feeling. Despite this being billed as a "musical", there are really only two Rodgers and Hart songs, and just a couple of big dance numbers. It's not hard to understand why this film failed to ignite much interest when it was released, and when the likes of Michael Schlesinger seem to be struggling to say much positive about the outing, it may be best to appreciate Dancing Pirate more for its historical precedence as one of the first live action three strip Technicolor films than for anything it intrinsically offers.

Dancing Pirate Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dancing Pirate is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Film Detective with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. The Film Detective unfortunately doesn't include any technical information with this release, though our news post about this release mentions a 4K restoration from "original film elements". Michael Schlesinger makes a passing comment about a single known element, which I guess this was based off of, but as our news post also mentions, the provenance here includes Wade Williams, whose personal collection has made it to other niche releases through the years. The results here are widely variant and I'm sure will probably be deemed problematic by many. The element is rather badly damaged at times, and the restoration gauntlet doesn't come close to eliminating a slough of expected things like scratches, blemishes and the occasionally warped frame. No restoration could overcome things like missing frames, and there are some "gaps" here that are completely noticeable. There are some other rather odd anomalies, like a brief moment in the opening dance scene where the image degrades very badly and the soundtrack seems sped up. As can probably be gleaned by parsing through the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review, the color timing is widely variant, to say the least. You can almost see a prevalence of red, blue or green becoming dominant in what almost amounts to "cycles" of gradings. You can clearly see a greenish cast to flesh tones in many of the screenshots here. There are moments that look really good and more like natural Technicolor (see screenshot 3), but those tend to be the exception rather than the rule. Grain is also rather odd looking a lot of the time, clumped and almost like swarms of insects, and at times it can give the appearance that characters have some kind of leprosy or other skin disease (see screenshot 8).

Dancing Pirate Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dancing Pirate features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track that may not have quite the same variances as the video side of things, but which obviously can't overcome things like missing frames, where the soundtrack can drop out or "lurch" for a second or two. There's noticeable hiss, along with occasional pops and cracks. Some of the more boisterous cues can crackle a bit. All in all, though, dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly, with the obvious exception of the missing frames. Optional English subtitles are available.

Dancing Pirate Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Jennifer Churchill


• Glorious Pioneers: The Birth of Technicolor (HD; 8:57) is an appealing overview with good information provided by David Pierce. This features one of the funnier subtitle errors (see the audio section for more information), where the legendary Natalie Kalmus, mentioned by David Pierce, is transcribed as Natalie Palance, which I guess makes her a relative of Jack.


• Ambushed by Mediocrity: Remembering The Dancing Pirate (HD; 8:13) features what sounds like a phone or Zoom audio interview with Michael Schlesinger.


• Dancing Pirate Still Gallery (HD; 4:52)

The insert booklet contains an essay by Jennifer Churchill.

Dancing Pirate Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Dancing Pirate is a curio, to be sure, and some may want to see it for that reason alone. But as some of the supplements on this disc get into, it's probably a failed attempt on several levels, and so expectations should be set accordingly. This release has iffy video and audio, some of which had to have been insurmountable due to the condition of whatever element was used. The supplements are generally very enjoyable, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.