Lafite, o Corsário

This movie has great stars in their earlier years: Ingor Stevens never looked prettier; Yul Brynner was a very convincing Jean LaFitte, conflicted about his piracy and desiring to keep neutrality with the United States. Charlton Heston did a pretty good job as Andrew Jackson, but some moments were a bit stilted. It's really a good flick for students to learn that part of our history, AND it shows that all happy endings do NOT include the lovers getting together with each other--sometimes the happier ending is that they sail away and find partners of similar background who will understand them better in the long run. I have viewed it every year at least twice for 16 years now; and though it is not the best movie I've ever seen, I love it every time!

This was the last film that Cecil B. DeMille had anything to do with. He originally planned to direct this remake of his 1938 film The Buccaneer, but ill health prevented him from doing so. So apart from a brief prologue and a production credit saying the film was presented by him, DeMille left the producing to good friend Henry Wilcoxon and the directing to his son-in-law Anthony Quinn.

This version has the added attractions of great technicolor photography and Paramount's new wide screen Vistavision process. I saw in the theater when I was 11 years old and it is quite an eyeful.

Yul Brynner makes as dashing a Jean Lafitte as Fredric March did in the 1938 film. Charlton Heston repeats his Andrew Jackson role from The President's Lady which he made earlier in the Fifties. Heston though was not satisfied because he realized that he was made up to look like the Andrew Jackson we know from the double sawbuck when he was in the White House. At New Orleans he was a bit younger. But like Moses and the circus boss from The Greatest Show on Earth, you follow him to Hades and back.

The best role in the film for me though was Charles Boyer as Dominic You, Lafitte's cynical second in command. A former artillery officer in Napoleon's army, he left there and took up piracy out of disillusionment with how the French Revolution turned out. Boyer has some good and wise lines in his counsel to Lafitte even if he's drunk while delivering some of them.

After The Ten Commandments, DeMille had plans to make a film about Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts and was in negotiations with David Niven to play Baden-Powell. He got sidetracked with this film and then he died in early 1959. Of course the Boy Scout film never did get made by anyone.

Although DeMille eliminated one element of the plot from 1938 the traitorous Senator played by Ian Keith the rest of the film is pretty much the same. This is hardly the real story of Jean Lafitte. When not on the action, the film does drag in spots. Maybe that's why Anthony Quinn never directed another film.

This version of The Buccaneer had one additional thing going for it. Country singer Johnny Horton had a mega hit record of The Battle of New Orleans at the same time the film came out. Both must have fed off each other in profit making. I well remember you couldn't go a day without hearing The Battle of New Orleans playing some time on the radio.

It's not history, it's DeMille at his gaudiest.

Charlton Heston is undoubtedly the best thing in this picture. A meandering script, dubious romantic liaisons and average acting come close to sinking "The Buccaneer". Yul is Jean La Fitte, the title role. His performance is all over the map, going from tough to lethargic, to mercurial, to wistfully patriotic. Charles Boyer plays himself portraying the roguish General Dominique You, late of Napoleon's army, is pretty good, Mickey Shaughnessy is good as a comic sidekick to the boss and Clare Bloom and Inger Stevens provide love interest. The battle of New Orleans is the centerpiece of the film and is reasonably well staged, considering it's obviously filmed on a sound stage. History is shown here as the pirates help the American army and militia turn back the British. Chuck is Andrew Jackson, and it's been pointed out several times, Chuck looks like they used his picture for the twenty. Typical Technicolor '50's epic, not bad but not great either.

As Cecil B. DeMille said in a theatrical trailer of this, his last movie, see the movie to determine whether or not Jean Lafitte during the War of 1812 is a hero or villain. Nobody could have portrayed the buccaneer LaFitte better that Yul Brynner, which is why he did play that part.(Brynner was not one bit bald-headed in the movie.) And, nobody could have portrayed better General Andrew Jackson than did Charlton Heston, and so he did. Inger Stevens was adorable as LaFitte's love interest. Brynner and Heston clicked well together as they did in The Ten Commandments.

The battle of New Orleans in this movie is hot in more ways than one, with plenty of gunfire and small rockets flying around in the muggy, hot, swamp there in the New Orleans area.

To be sure, the War of 1812 is, again, depicted well, so convincingly. As always, the champion movie director Cecil B. DeMille made here a great directing feat and, since this was his last major production, "left on a good note."

If you're at all interested in pirates, pirate movies, New Orleans/early 19th century American history, or Yul Brynner, see this film for yourself and make up your own mind about it. Don't be put off by various lacklustre reviews. My reaction to it was that it is entertaining, well acted (for the most part), has some very witty dialogue, and that it does an excellent job of portraying the charm, appeal and legendary fascination of the privateer Jean Lafitte. While not all the events in the film are historically accurate (can you show me any historical film that succeeds in this?), I feel the film is accurate in its treatment of the role Lafitte played in New Orleans' history, and the love-hate relationship between the "respectable" citizens of New Orleans and this outlaw who was one of the city's favorite sons. Don't worry about what the film doesn't do, but watch it for what it does do, i.e., for its study of one of New Orleans', and America's, most intriguing historical figures.