Captain Caution

Kenneth Roberts, newspaperman and writer of some marvelous historical novels about early America, got lucky in 1940 when two of his best selling novels were adapted into film. The first was Northwest Passage which MGM gave the A treatment with Spencer Tracy. And then there was this film adaption of Captain Caution which takes place in the opening weeks of the War of 1812.

Roberts's novels are long and complex and I got the feeling that a lot of character development was sacrificed for action. Certainly the action sequences were well done and Victor Mature in one of his earliest films made a dashing hero. And the film got an Oscar nomination for Best Sound recording.

Yet things seemed to move a little too quick. MGM when dong Northwest Passage wisely decided the novel was too long to make an entire film out of it. They concentrated on the first part about Roger's Rangers and their contribution to the French and Indian War. There were plans for a sequel, but they eventually came to naught. But they had a complete film in just what they used.

I got the feeling in Captain Caution that they tried to get the whole book in and did a slipshod job in adapting it. It's not a bad film, but it could have been a whole lot better.

Louise Platt was fresh from her triumph in Stagecoach and plays the lady owner of an American merchant vessel that gets attacked by a British navy frigate. The Americans don't know they're at war and get attacked by surprise. Louise's father, Robert Barrat, is killed and she develops an understandable case of anglophobia. And she's put out quite a bit that her intended Victor Mature isn't all fired up to turn their merchant vessel into a privateer. She gravitates towards the villainous Bruce Cabot who has his own ideas and they don't necessarily mesh with Louise's.

Alan Ladd has a small bit role as an American who was impressed into the British Navy. That was done quite a bit right before the War of 1812. He's a prisoner because he resisted the idea. I'm sure the folks at Paramount must have noticed this part because two years later, Ladd made his break out film for Paramount in This Gun for Hire.

I look at Captain Caution and wonder what might have happened if it had been done at MGM the way Northwest Passage was done.

I had totally forgotten this adventure film made by the director of SINBAD THE SAILOR, another famous adventure film, but taking place in another period...Here, the story takes place in 1812 and the message is - what a surprise - a bit anti British, instead of being anti Nazi - or simply anti German. But the director Richard Wallace was a comedy film maker instead of action films and from time to time, we can feel it properly thru light touches that we would not have found in a Raoul Walsh or Michael Curtiz's film, for instance. But the most important, the action matter, are also effective and this all long the movie. I also forgot that Victor Mature had already begun in thee business in 1940, and in a lead role....

This is one of a multitude of films (usually of the swashbuckling-adventure variety) whose title is “Captain” someone or other; its executive producer Hal Roach had himself just directed CAPTAIN FURY (1939) which, like the film under review, I should also be watching projected on a big screen in the near future. In fact, this is my third such venture to a private theater – which appointments are frequently organized by a mutual friend of the owner (a collector of classic films on 16 and 35mm) and mine – after THE SILVER CHALICE (1954) and THE VEILS OF BAGHDAD (1953); for the record, next up should be the similarly seafaring but Technicolored RAIDERS OF THE SEVEN SEAS (1953).

Victor Mature’s third film has him in dashing form as the rugged yet peace-loving navigator hero of the title (dubbed so by the heroine herself) who’s forced into action when his on-off fiancée’s captain father is killed in battle by the British Navy during the1812 War. The daughter, who also takes her father’s place on the ship and makes some unwise alliances, is played by Louise Platt – best-known as the child-bearing snob in John Ford’s STAGECOACH (1939) – and, while being fairly decent in the role, she evidently lacks the charisma and magnetism of a Maureen O’Hara (who would later make that kind of part her own).

The film (whose director would later also helm the Douglas Fairbanks Jr. vehicle SINBAD THE SAILOR [1947]) itself, while generally fast-paced and entertaining, is clearly below the standard of the far classier stuff Errol Flynn was concurrently filming at Warner Bros.; still, it strives to rise above these B-movie origins by packing as much action as it possibly can into the trim 85-minutes running-time – including a gladiatorial bout between Mature and a hulking, laughing brute aboard an English ship for the amusement of the aristocrats (actually serving as cover for an escape attempt below deck), and many energetic fistfights between sailors and pirates of opposing nations.

The characters are mostly caricatures – a duplicitous first mate, a stuttering stooge, a mandolin-playing immigrant, a womanizing Frenchman and his shrewish wife, a constantly grumbling old sea-hand, etc. – but the cast is interesting enough (Bruce Cabot, Leo Carillo, Roscoe Ates, Aubrey Mather and even a bearded Alan Ladd as a rabble-rousing prisoner) to keep one watching nonetheless. The condition of the print was (understandably) hardly optimal given the film’s age and status, with the hiss-filled soundtrack and some wobbly images being particular liabilities; however, as long as films of this vintage don’t appear on DVD (though TCM USA does occasionally screen such unassuming but undeniably fun fare), I’ll take any option that’s available to me.

The first few minutes of this film hooked me and I had hopes that it would be an excellent film. After all, the idea of a film set during the War of 1812 was intriguing--this is a subject rarely talked about in movies. However, after a short time, it became obvious that the film was high on the anachronism factor--in other words, having people behaving totally uncharacteristically from that time period. The notion of a lady sea captain setting off to attack and punish the British just never would have or could have happened in 1812. While this was silly, it still didn't mean the film couldn't have been exciting. Unfortunately, even if you ignore this plot problem, about a half hour into the film it also became amazingly dull and talky. Instead of an Errol Flynn-style adventure film, it just all ground to an almost complete halt. Sure, it picked up for the rousing conclusion, but by then I had really lost interest and just wanted the whole thing to end due to poor writing. Plus, in this conclusion, it made fighting in a naval battle look FUN! This "fun" element is pretty stupid as well as a bit disturbing--and further evidence it is a mediocre film.

Kenneth Roberts was a wonderful writer of American historical novels set especially during the Revolutionary and War of 1812 eras. Weighty but very engaging sagas of heroism against adversity in the shaping of the early United States. I've read and re-read Northwest Passage, Arundel, Rabble in Arms, Oliver Wiswell, Captain Caution, and Lively Lady. Roberts takes the reader on a whirlwind of adventure rooted in real American history. The movie treatment of Captain Caution, however, has two many light and comedic elements making it almost into a satire on historical fiction. Victor Mature is no Errol Flynn when it comes to dashing, complex, romantic heroes, and the comedic over-acting of sidekick Leo Carrillo and other character actors pushes the movie from drama to light comedy. For a much better seafaring production made produced in the same Hollywood era stick with "Captain Horatio Hornblower" with Gregory Peck. I'm guessing that author Roberts was not happy with this treatment of his historical novel. For an excellent Roberts adaptation stick with "Northwest Passage."