Les corsaires de Tortuga

Pirates Of Tortuga has Captain Ken Scott who is a privateer on a special mission from the Admiralty. He's been told that Henry Morgan the pirate king with whom they had a deal with when Great Britain was at war with Spain has gone rogue again and set himself in grand style living on Tortuga Island as a pirate king. His living of course is the commerce of the merchant fleet of the West Indies. He's been so good at it that Jamaica is close to starvation.

Scott's mission is relieve Jamaica first then get Morgan. Not so easy, but with his picked crew of buccaneers he's confident that they'll get the job done.

Going along for the ride is stowaway Leticia Roman, a cut purse from London who Scott feels sorry for. She's trouble at first, but proves her worth.

Olympic track star Rafer Johnson has a small part in Pirates Of Tortuga and Robert Stephens plays a dastardly Morgan.

Pirates Of Tortuga was done on the cheap with ample stock footage from such 20th Century Fox classics as the Black Swan and Anne Of The Indies.

Pleasant afternoon viewing for action/adventure fans.

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.

This film essentially begins with an English navy vessel just pulling into port with cargo they wish to sell. It's then that the captain of the ship, "Ken Scott" (Bart Paxton) is immediately summoned for a meeting with his navy superiors and is told that, after selling his merchandise, he is to set sail once again-this time for the island of Tortuga where a pirate by the name of "Captain Henry Morgan" (Robert Stephens) has established as his home base and is strangling all commerce that ventures into that area. To that effect, his plan is to masquerade as a pirate himself in order to infiltrate Henry Morgan's operation. What he doesn't know, however, is that a young woman by the name of "Meg" (Leticia Roman) has secretly snuck aboard his ship and--upon being detected--becomes a big distraction during the entire voyage there. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I was a bit disappointed with this movie because it lacked the grandeur and excitement often found in films of this type. Likewise, although the acting wasn't bad necessarily, I think the film would have certainly benefited from a better cast as well. In any case, while viewers looking for a grade-B pirate movie could probably do worse, I wasn't really impressed with it and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

One of the myriad cheapies churned out by independent film producers (here Sam Katzman) under the aegis of a major Hollywood studio (20th Century Fox) and which revolves around the exploits of a notorious pirate figure (Sir Henry Morgan). Despite being fully aware of the film’s non-reputation even among others of its type, I was still taken in by the relatively decent cast (Robert Stephens, Leticia Roman and John Richardson) and the promise of colorful entertainment (brought on by my recent spate of similar superior outings).

Unfortunately, PIRATES OF TORTUGA falls far short of earlier movies about Morgan – THE BLACK SWAN (1942) or even the contemporaneous MORGAN, THE PIRATE (1961) – and proves to be a lackluster affair with a poverty of imagination on display that is quite dispiriting. To start with, Morgan (an over-the-top Stephens) himself only appears half-way through with the result that we are left largely in the company of a truly overbearing gypsy of a leading lady (Roman), a listless hero (Ken Jones) and his puerile cronies (Richardson and Dave King). Add to that the intermittent usage of action stock footage lifted from earlier Fox seafaring productions, the uncharacteristic popping up of modern slang in the dialogue and the sheer predictability of the whole venture and it’s small wonder that very little time has elapsed before the film starts to sink…right out of one’s memory!

For the record, director Robert D. Webb had much earlier won an Oscar as an assistant director (in one of the few times these awards where handed out) on IN OLD CHICAGO (1937) and had also guided Elvis Presley through his first film LOVE ME TENDER (1956); incidentally, I might get to check out six(!) of his other directorial chores in the future: not just two notable Westerns WHITE FEATHER (1955; with Jeffrey Hunter and Robert Wagner, which I have in my DVD collection) and THE PROUD ONES (1956; with Robert Ryan and Jeffrey Hunter again, which I intend to acquire) but also a few more available at local DVD rental outlets: BENEATH THE 12-MILE REEF (1953; which I haven’t watched in ages), the aforementioned LOVE ME TENDER, THE CAPE TOWN AFFAIR (1967; a remake of Samuel Fuller’s PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET [1953]) and THE JACKALS (1967; featuring Vincent Price and a remake of William A. Wellman’s YELLOW SKY [1948], which I own and intend to watch presently as part of my ongoing Richard Widmark tribute).

I saw this film quite a few times growing up on independent TV stations. I didn't think it was anything too spectacular then, but hey, it was a pirate flick, and you can't go too wrong... right? Well, before the days of corporate run focus groups and test market screenings for films, the studio moguls, banking on what they believed would sell, would ride movie trends like the corporates do today. Back then Westerns and Pirate flicks were all the rage, and in 1961, hoping to revitalize a waning market, 20th Century Fox invested in this thing.

They must've done it on the cheap. Recycleing old studio props and sets, it looks like they cast bit part players in supporting roles. That and the cinematography is pretty bland, though not too far from b-movie standards at the time.

It's a market driven film. No standards or rules are being bent or pushed. There's a few social messages snuck in here and there, but nothing too shocking by contemporary American social standards.

There's nothing really innovative or impressive about this film, but it does offer two hours of pirate escapism. Take it for what it is.