Sangue Rebelde

When I started watching "Captain Lightfoot", I was taken aback when I saw that Rock Hudson was playing an Irish highway man! But, after getting over the shock, I realized that Hudson wasn't 100% terrible...at least when he remembered to use his Irish accent! But, as I just noted...he often sounded like Rock Hudson and only sometimes remembered the accent. I really don't blame him so much....it was the director's job to notice these sorts of things. Amazingly, it was directed by the very well respected Douglas Sirk....who made some of Douglas' best films. It also was a big budget production...filmed on location in Ireland and in color.

When the story begins, Michael Martin (Hudson) is a cheap and rather dim highwayman along with his friend. But they aren't very good at it and soon end up in really serious trouble with the law when one of their victims pulls Michael's mask off. So, he needed to go into hiding and is rescued by a traveling priest....or at least someone PRETENDING to be a priest. The man turns out to be the infamous Captain Thunderbolt (Jeff Morrow)...a combination Irish patriot, gambler and highwayman. But unlike Michael, he has class and common sense and soon Thunderbolt dubs Michael 'Captain Lightfoot' and makes him his second in command.

A bit later, Thunderbolt is shot and injured during one of his incursions. While in hiding and recovering, he asks Lightfoot to take command of his gambling house AND his household...including his headstrong daughter, Aga (Barbara Rush). You just KNOW that this means sooner or later, the pair will become lovers (I am referring to Aga and Lightfoot, not Thunderbolt and Lightfoot). What's next for these folks? See the film.

Despite being about highwaymen and crime, this film turned out to be a costume drama. Much of the time, folks are wearing colorful fancy outfits, dancing and living in luxury...not the sort of thing you might expect in a film about Irish patriots/bandits. Again, you could see that Universal really pulled out the stops with this one...with a large budget and lots of gloss.

So is it any good? Yes...very good...but not great. The acting is generally good (apart from a few missing accents...not just from Hudson), the locations lovely and the story engaging.

Rock Hudson, Barbara Rush, and Jeff Morrow came over from America to appear with a cast of Irish players starring in Captain Lightfoot. It's a story of Ireland in the post Napoleonic era with the dashing Captain Thunderbolt looking for a successor to carry on with banditry and villainy all in the cause of a free Ireland.

Morrow is the legendary Thunderbolt getting on in years and when in the guise of a parson spots young Rock Hudson taking on a British dragoon. That was it, Morrow has found his man.

He also finds his son-in-law as well as his daughter Barbara Rush eventually falls for Hudson who after a period where she thinks of him as a country bumpkin, starts falling for him. She names his Lightfoot because of lack of ability on the dance floor. There relationship is not approved of by Morrow and first and Rush is a spitfire. There's a lot of borrowing from The Taming Of The Shrew here.

Hudson seems a bit ill at ease in a part that a young Errol Flynn would have gone to town with. Also if you've seen Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in The Fighting O'Flynn with that kind of élan Fairbanks brought to the part it was a shame he was about 15 years too old for the role.

Rush and Morrow are great and the Irish locations and the talents of the supporting cast, many of them members of the Abbey Theater really do make the film a visual treat and a treat for the ears. The finale involving storming the castle at Ballymoor is well staged.

He wasn't well cast, but the role did no harm to the rising career of Rock Hudson.

Very unusual for a 1950's Universal costume adventure, Captain Lightfoot sports expensive, elaborate production values. It benefits greatly from extensive location shooting, beautifully photographed, and fancifully but tastefully colorful sets and costumes.

Hudson and Rush are excellent as dashing hero and his spitfire lady.

There's an effective mix of action, romantic comedy, and melodrama--all well staged.

Too bad the script is weak; often the character relationships and decisions characters make stretch credibility to the point of distraction.

Contrary to what a couple of other reviewers here said, I thought most of the supporting cast so-so, Abby Players or not. None of the fun, charisma, and panache that British-Hollywood baddies like Basil Rathbone, Claude Raines, and Henry Daniel brought to similar material.

Splendidly shot in the Green Erin - Ireland - this beautiful, magic adventure movie is my own favorite from director Douglas Sirk, who was mostly specialized in melodramas; certainly not adventures and westerns. Which he also gave us from once in a while. As an Universal Pictures stuff, you could hardly avoid Rock Hudson - or it could have been Tony Curtis or Jeff Chandler, other "home" stars. It is an enchanted film, I forgive the naive side of this story that could have also been written for a sword and sandal or even One Thousand and One nights tale, set in Arabian desert or palace. I have great tenderness for this beautiful film.

This is not really a drama;this is not a story of sound and fury either. Sirk's swashbuckler is a bit tongue-in -cheek .He often makes a fool of his hero (Rock Hudson ,his favourite actor ,he will be featured in many other Sirk works including the stunning "magnificent obsession" and "written on the wind" ): he tries to help captain Thunderbolt to escape and ends up himself in prison;on the roof he unintentionally rings the bell.Barbara Rush (another Sirk's favourite:she will team up with Hudson again in " Taza" and "obsession")gets a good whacking.The political side remains vague and neither the Irish nor the English seem to take it seriously although it's not really a comedy.But the main interest is the splendid cinematography ,the marvelous landscapes :the scene when Lightfoot and Regis try to escape and end up in the river is masterfully filmed.There's something nonchalant ,which makes "captain Lightfoot" a distant cousin of "a scandal in Paris" (1946) in Sirk's filmography.

That said,it's entertaining but I do not think that it ranks with the director's best films.