The Pirate

So here we have the pirate, me being a musical dunce finds it strange that it’s a pirate film without Jack Sparrow. It’s also weird for me to see Judy Garland not following a yellow brick road. So this was a weird experience for me. It’s also weird to see how this was promoted as an MGM musical. It strange to see how much punch a studio name has, I mean today the only studio that is really distinctive in what it puts out is Pixar but according to my research when this film was made MGM symbolised the best of what Hollywood could offer and I think it’s a shame that along the way studios have lost their identities and are concerned only about making money and not being creative or different from each other. But this film was made at the height of creative fervour at MGM and this would help and hinder the film.

So first the songs which were all written by the great Cole Porter and another weird thing when I researched this guy it turned out he’d written a lot of songs I genuinely like but when this film was coming out he’d had several Broadway flops and wanted to create some musical hits. Unfortunately for him the only one that was a hit was be a clown which when I listened to it, I immediately thought of make em laugh from Gene Kelly’s much more well known singin in the rain. It’s so similar that you almost suspect plagiarism but apparently sometimes in show business two people end up writing the same song entirely independent of each other. I ‘m not entirely sure I buy this but it’s a catchy tune and Gene Kelly and Judy Garland perform it well. My personal favourite song was Mack the black, it really shows Judy Garland’s vocal talent and it’s catchy and upbeat. The same could be said for Nina but the song is overshadowed by the great comedic routine Gene Kelly puts together when he manages to seduce every girl in this town in moments. Talking about dancing although not technically a song I have to mention the pirate ballet which is probably the best dance sequence I’ve ever seen. It’s weird to say for a dance sequence but it’s just so manly, it’s got explosions, some cool acrobatics, swords, guns and also Gene Kelly’s legs which are supremely sexy.  You can do no wrong and love of my life were the only songs I didn’t care for not because they were bad it was just average, Judy Garland sings them well but they’re just two more love song with nothing distinguishing about them. They’re songs that you instantly forget. Overall the soundtrack isn’t spectacular but it does what it needs to do.

I have to talk about the star power behind this film because they both do such a wonderful job. Firstly Judy Garland who I just loved during this whole film as I’ve mentioned before the only thing I’ve seen her in is the Wizard of Oz so it was weird seeing her all grown up. But she looks glamorous throughout this film wearing the most gorgeous costumes and just being such a thrill to watch. Also she’s actually quite funny, she has great comedic timing throughout this film, I think this shows through most when she’s trying to seduce Gene Kelly and in the brawl immediately after that but my personal favourite bit was the “he asked for me” bit. She is truly hilarious, weirdly people blame her for this movie being a flop and while she had a lot of sick days, and her personal life wasn’t great at the time, I don't see it in the final product and I think that’s what counts. Gene Kelly dances marvellously throughout this film and his performance of Serafin is just so funny. From him tricking his troupe and “You can hardly call it sneaking, I walked across a tightrope.” He is the epitome of the loveable rogue and oh those magnificent legs.

The plot of this film is simple Manuela (Judy Garland) has been engaged by her aunt Inez to Don Pedro, a fat rotund man who’s mayor. Manuela not exactly thrilled with this prospect wants to take one last trip to port Sebastian to pick up her wedding dress. Upon arriving, the enigmatic Serafin(Gene Kelly) immediately falls in love with her and invites her to his show. She goes but is hypnotised by Serafin and admits she’s in love with Jack sparrow, just kidding; she’s in love with Macoco the black. This displeases our plucky actor so he goes to where she lives and pretends to be the great Macoco to win her over and get her to join his troupe. So she goes to him and finds out he’s been lying, messes with him for a bit and then throws everything she can find at him. In fairness at this point, he’s harassed her, hypnotised her, kissed her, tricked her, stalked her and lied, so it is all justified. She accidentally hurts him and realises that she loves him but he is taken away and Manuela discovers that Don Pedro is Mac the black which is a nice twist of irony. So she saves her new love by exposing Don Pedro by pretending to be hypnotised and it ends with a reprise of be a clown. This musical certainly has some very good lines like “try underplaying” and the plot does works in a way that expands on their stars talents and takes them out of their personas a little. It's also quite clever in how it subverssively mocks what it's portraying. It could be seen as too clever for it's own considering it flopped.

One of the problems with this movie is that the side characters aren’t given that much to do Walter Slezak is an average villain in this but he should be more interesting, this is someone who’s trying to reform his life but can’t get over his own bullying and evil nature. So much more should have been done with his character but Walter Slezak does ok but he never intrigued me the way a good villain should. Aunt Inez played by Gladys Cooper has a few good lines but in the end she comes across as the stereotypical guardian. I think the biggest shame was that Gene Kelly’s troupe wasn’t given much to do apart from a scene at the beginning which is quite funny. As Serafin becomes more and more ridiculous, I kept wondering what his troupe were thinking about all this and why they were going along with it with little comment, apparently they were meant to have scenes which were cut for time which is a great shame. But the standout members of the troupe were the Nicholas brothers who dance with Gene Kelly near the end of the movie. They’re dancing is amazing and it was definitely worth the effort Gene Kelly went through to get them in this film.

Let’s talk about the director Vincente Minnelli who did a great job during this film. He really helped punctuate the choreography of the dances with the scenery and camera movements and this film is just so pretty. Now then there’s no getting past that this is a set but I think that’s the point this world isn’t real, because the real world could never be so bright and picturesque.  Someone said that you could take any shot from this film blow it up and hang it in your house and it’s largely true. Nearly every single shot of this film looks magnificent and huge props have to go to the costumes, scenery and all the other behind the scenes staff that made it possible. They really took advantage of the Technicolor and the result is glorious to behold. Everything looks good from Judy Garland's dresses to the cover art on my dvd box.

This DVD actually has a lot of special features and if you’re a fan of this movie I recommend buying it. First of all there’s a commentary by John Fricke who to be honest sounds like a robot the whole way through but has some interesting facts about the film and its stars. A featurette about the making of this film which is very interesting and a little more enthused than the commentary. There are two shorts, one is called you can’t win and has an omnipotent narrator determined to torture the poor schmuck as he does the simplest of tasks. The other is a classic Tom and Jerry cartoon “cat fishing” and I don’t think I need to add to that. There’s a  stereo remix of Mack the black song outtakes and guide tracks of the songs by Rodger Edens who is very good. There are also promotional radio interviews from Gene Kelly and Judy Garland, Gene Kelly’s is good and I never noticed how much charm there was in his voice. Judy Garland is also charming and while I said you can’t really tell about her personal problems watching this film, I think you can tell in this interview that she’s struggling a little bit. Lastly there’s the trailer which to me illustrates why this film wasn’t successful.

To conclude critics from across the world have debated about the merits and faults of this film. Was it good? Was it bad? Could it have been better? So here’s my two cents I really liked this film but for me the reason this film didn’t do well was because of how it’s advertised. The tag line is the “MGM musical romance” and the trailer really hammers the point about these two stars falling in love in this movie. But this movie isn’t a romance, don’t get me wrong it has romantic elements and Gene and Judy had a great chemistry but that doesn’t make it a romance. It’s a comedy, you’re primarily meant to laugh at how absurd the situation is not oooh and ahhh at the romance it’s just not that kind of movie and I think that’s one of the reasons why this film didn’t do well when it first came out. The audience were expecting a star struck romance with songs and swashbuckling thrown in but instead they got a parody of those things. As Gene Kelly said the joke just went over everyone’s head.