Lafitte, O Corsário

Cecil B. DeMille in 1938 turned his talent for spectacle to the legend of pirate Jean Lafitte and his contribution for saving New Orleans from British occupation in 1815 at the battle that bears the city's name.

The ironic part is that the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812 had been signed a few weeks earlier, but news had neither reached the invading army commanded by General Edward Pakenham, brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington; nor the Americans either in Washington, DC or the civil and military authorities in New Orleans. Had the British won they probably would have stayed for several years, I'm sure they wouldn't have given up so valuable a possession as the city that controlled the mouth of the Mississippi river.

Jean Lafitte is one of those characters not from antiquity about whom we know neither the date of his birth or death. He was born either in France or Haiti around 1780 and probably died sometime in the 1840s. As soon as the Louisiana territory was purchased from France, he set himself up in business nearby New Orleans in the swamps of Barataria and did a flourishing business in the smuggling trade. He may have had as many as a thousand men under his command.

Even after the fledgling American Navy attacked his stronghold, Lafitte for reasons of his own sided with the Americans in the fight for New Orleans that had nothing to do with the fictional romance portrayed in The Buccaneer. He did however provide men and supplies to Andrew Jackson's army and may have tipped the balance of the fight. Though he got a pardon as shown in the film, he resumed his pirate ways and eventually left New Orleans for Galveston Island. Eventually he was driven out of there in the next decade and after that we have no idea what really happened to him, though there is speculation.

Fredric March makes a dashing Jean Lafitte and DeMille staged the battle up to his usual high standards of spectacle. In addition to the fictitious romance between Lafitte and the Governor of Louisiana's daughter played by Margot Grahame, the other part of the film that is wholly fictional is that involving the traitorous United States Senator played by Ian Keith. No such a person was around New Orleans, though there was an anti-war movement breaking out here, but in New England which saw its commercial trade ruined by both Jefferson's Embargo and the War of 1812.

One thing that DeMille didn't do either in this film or the remake in 1958 was focus on Pakenham. The army that went to its slaughter in the swamps near New Orleans in a headlong assault were a veteran bunch of troops who had fought in the Peninsular War against Bonaparte. The commander was a much beloved brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington and he fell gallantly leading his men. Wellington thought of Ned Pakenham more like a kid brother of his own than his wife's brother. He took the news of the defeat pretty badly. In fact the news cast a pall over Great Britain so recently celebrating Napoleon's exile to Elba. Fortunately they and Wellington recovered to route Bonaparte in his comeback attempt at Waterloo.

Walter Brennan has a nice role as Andy Jackson's personal aide and Hugh Sothern is an impressive Jackson. DeMille introduced actress Franciska Gaal from Hungary in the role of castaway passenger from a ship that was plundered by one of Lafitte's ships. She didn't make much of an impression on the American public, perhaps it was her thick Magyar accent. After a film with Bing Crosby the following year, Paris Honeymoon, Gaal returned to Europe just in time for World War II and to a country allied with the Axis at that point. She was not heard from again on film.

When the remake came out in 1958, Paramount shelved this version of The Buccaneer and was rarely shown for the rest of the century. I got to see it during a TCM retrospective of Cecil B. DeMille. It's good DeMille, but far from good history.

...from Paramount Pictures and director Cecil B. DeMille. During the War of 1812, New Orleans-based privateer Jean Lafitte (Fredric March) struggles to organize the pirates and outlaws of the bayou into a fighting force for the United States against the British forces. Also featuring Evelyn Keyes in her debut.

I've seen the 1958 remake with Yul Brynner a few times. That one was directed by Anthony Quinn, with an ailing C. B. DeMille supervising. So I can't help but compare the two. The '58 version isn't any kind of high art, but I enjoyed it for what it was. This version seems like a tamer, less energetic version. March seems to be having fun with his hammy French accent, although his dialogue isn't as grating as Tamiroff's tireless mugging. Brennan wears his best Daniel Boone outfit, but not his false teeth. I'm not familiar with Hugh Sothern, the raw-boned older gentleman playing Andrew Jackson, but he pales in comparison to Charlton Heston's scenery chewing turn in the later version.

Forgotten Hungarian star Franciska Gaal made her American movie debut here. She's somewhat charming at times, but her characterization gets tiresome. She'd only make two more US movies before heading back to Europe. In the end, I found this overlong, corny, loud, entertaining in bits, but overall too clunky and lacking in pace and focus. It earned an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography. This is in black and white, but one scene was tinted green.

An excellent action movie with good pacing and development. There is never a dull moment. The movie shows more of Laffite's business dealings than with his pirate actions. In actual fact Laffite was quite a businessman that the governor did want captured and did put a price on his head of $500. Laffite did respond to that but not for the $10,000 the movie stated. One must never accept a movie's version of history but "The Buccaneer" does a quite credible job of drawing you into life in 1814 in New Orleans. Laffite was offered $30,000 and other inducements by the British and the Americans did not believe him (this was very accurate). His base in Barataria was destroyed though at a later time. When the battle was over he did go back to sea as a pirate. His days in New Orleans were indeed over. So, sit back and enjoy a movie that is good entertainment and is also pretty good history. This movie is proof that you can learn history from the movies.

This film was pretty much what I expected from Cecil B. DeMille. In almost all of his films, you have a huge cast (this time in the thousands), elaborate sets and props, a rather silly romance and a desire for action and expense over realism and historical accuracy. Many love his films, but I find most of them time-passers.

As for the romance, this film features two for Jean Lafitte (Frederic March), though the dominant one involves Franciska Gaal. She's rather a comic book-like figure--more a caricature than a believable person and this is pure DeMille, as is the romantic dialog. At least it was much better than the lines uttered in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS by the Princess, but this isn't saying much. DeMille just had no ability to convey real people and real romance--he was more the epic action and spectacle sort of director.

Action-wise, there are some very long and well made scenes, though oddly, the naval sequences were awfully tepid. The battle scenes on land were handled much better and the costumes looked very nice.

Historically speaking, this isn't a bad film but it does contain many inaccuracies. Apart from glamorizing Jean Lafitte (who was a smuggler and total jerk), it seemed to exaggerate his importance to the Battle of New Orleans. While he did "rat" on the English by telling the Americans of their invasion plans, most accounts place the number of troops he sent to fight to be just a few dozen at most (though they were gunners--a welcome addition). Also, the fact that this battle actually took place a month AFTER the peace treaty was signed wasn't mentioned--as communication was such in 1815 that the British and Americans could not let the troops know that the war had ended for several more weeks. This made the outcome of the battle unimportant (but certainly not to the soldiers involved) and would have taken away from the excitement of the film, so it was simply omitted.

While I am complaining, I should also point out that the film never seemed to end. While it logically should have ended when this battle concluded, it continued and greatly lessened the film's impact and made me fidgety.

Overall, there's a lot of action (I'd give this an 8), some dopey romance and dialog (I'd give them a 3), some good and bad historically speaking (I'd give it a 5) and the movie was overly long. Overall, I think a score of 5 is merited. A decent time-passer but that's about all.

Having just moved back to Baton Rouge, La. in 2003 after living in Jacksonville, Fla. for the previous 16 years, I started getting reacquainted with the history of the state I had first lived much of my life from age 7 to 19. One of those sources was from this Cecil B. DeMille account of Louisiana's pirate-hero Jean Lafitte. It was he and his men who helped General Andrew Jackson with his troops defeat the British at The Battle of New Orleans. This was in exchange for a full pardon for him and his men after originally getting a price on his head from the Governor of The Pelican State. Fredric March makes a dashing Lafitte with Akim Tamiroff splendid as his sidekick Dominique. Margot Grahame is Lafitte's fiancée while Franciska Gaal is the Dutch girl Gretchen who falls for Jean after walking the plank from another ship that was lead by a man who betrayed Lafitte. Walter Brennan is funny here as Peavey, a sidekick to General Jackson (Hugh Sothern). Watch what happens when he and Tamiroff have a scene together! Because of some of the accents and the speed of some of the dialogue, I couldn't understand everything that was said but most of the time it was the action that got to me, especially when the American military men initially were attacking Lafitte's men as they were about to welcome them. Grahame and Gaal had their own feminine charms that made either one good chemistry with March so whichever one ended up with him would have been fine. I think I've said enough so I'll just say for anyone who loves a good old-fashioned story with some history thrown in, I highly recommend Cecil B. DeMille's The Buccaneer.