The Pirate (1948)

1948 was Gene Kelly's banner year for swashbuckling roles. Not only did he here play a combination of an itinerant gymnastic carnival actor and pirate imposter, he also starred in the non-musical "The 3 Musketeers". .....Having missed the opportunity to costar with Judy in "Easter Parade" that year, due to an injury, this was their second pairing, but the first photographed in color, and what color! It was also the first of 3 films starring Kelly that was directed by Judy's husband at the time: Vincente Minnelli. The second, 2 years later, was the Oscar-winning "An American in Paris", also a very colorful experience. Reportedly, Judy became increasing mentally unstable, missing many days, or being late, which put a strain on their marriage.......The screenplay is scripted to occur in Calvado: a town on a small Caribbean island, with it's many colorful people and costumes. Judy is cast as the unmarried Manuela, who lives with her aunt and uncle. Arrangements have been made for her to marry the plump middle-aged Don Pedro(well played by Walter Slezak), who is the new town mayor. But Manuela yearns for her imagined hero: the infamous pirate Macoco. She first encounters the athletic performer Serafin(Kelly) and his troupe at the wharf, as they arrive. He takes an immediate fancy to her. Upon learning of her infatuation with her imagined Mococo, Serafin decides to masquerade as the pirate: quite believable to Manuela. Later, we will meet the real Mococo, presently masquerading as one of the town folk. I will stop my introduction here......The tacked on finale centers on the tumbling, slapstick and singing associated with Cole Porter's new song : "Be a Clown". It's certainly the most memorable of Porter's scores composed for this film. It was done twice, with a brief interlude. First, Kelly teamed with the African American Nicholas Brothers: who specialized in gymnastic dancing and stunts. They were incorporated into several musicals in the '40s, but never before in an act that included a Caucasian. Although their version was cut out in copies sent to The South, many people found that combination unacceptable. Hence, they relocated to Europe until the Civil Rights revolution brought them back. The second version included Judy, with Kelly. This was more oriented toward slapstick rather than tumbling, and is the version seen in all copies. It was a great way to finish the story, with Manuela reinventing herself.......Four years later , the tune of "Be a Clown" was resurrected for "Singing in the Rain", with new lyrics by Arthur Freed. The result was the much remembered "Make 'Em Laugh" production, starring Donald O'Connor. Strangely, at the IMDB site for the present film, Nacio Brown is listed as the tune composer and Arthur Freed as the lyricist, published in 1948, rather than 1952! I don't imagine MGM cared much who got the credit for composing the tune, as they presumably owned the copyrights for both.

Like their 1945 artistic disappointment, "Yolanda and the Thief", producer Arthur Freed and director Vincent Minnelli strived to give cinema fans something different with their version of the 1942 Broadway play "The Pirate" which had starred the phenomenally famous stage couple of Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne. For MGM's rendition of that comical battle of the sexes, they added songs, here by Cole Porter, and in their first pairing in six years, Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. By this time, Gene was a star but Judy, already a legend, was undergoing emotional problems, and the result was a film that by the time of its release was more famous for its backstage drama than the on-screen drama.If Judy was ill, it doesn't show, and even if she believed she was being upstaged, that doesn't show as well. She's hysterically funny, amazingly sexy and at her best in singing her big number, "Mack the Black", as she yearns for a life of adventure with her life-long fantasy of the notorious pirate who realistically seems to be twice her age, yet makes her want him all the more. Along comes her social climbing aunt (Gladys Cooper, as regal as ever) who has arranged her marriage to the town's mayor (portly Walter Slezak). Not exactly anybody's idea of a romantic marriage, Slezak has longed for her from afar as well, and Cooper knows a Garland/Slezak pairing will put plenty of coin in her own pocket.Along comes a traveling player (Gene Kelly) who "insults" Garland in several ways, most comically by getting her soaking wet. "What are you, a top?", Garland roars as he spins around her in his efforts to romance her. But Kelly, who has already made an effort with practically every other lady in the town through the Douglas Fairbanks spoof "Nina", and when he manages to hypnotize Garland while putting on his show, learns of her yen for Mack the Black and upon meeting Slezak decides to use that to win her from the portly mayor.An update in play writing terms of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew", Garland wants nothing to do with Kelly until he claims to be the pirate in disguise. But Kelly knows the truth of who Slezak really is, and this might lead to his own doom, even if Garland is responsible for it first when she smashes everything in sight after a row with him. Garland gets a beautiful ballad, "Love of My Life", while Kelly gets the first chance for the public to hear one of Cole's most amusing film songs, "Be a Clown", reprised of course with Judy much later on. Breathtakingly filmed and fast paced, this isn't deserving of its flop status, and as several critics pointed out at the time, it was indeed ahead of its time. Garland and Kelly are even more exciting than their first effort, "For Me and My Gal", and Kelly showed with both this and a remake of "The Three Musketeers" the same year that he was in league with Fairbanks, Colman and Errol Flynn when it came to the art of swashbuckling. Cooper is coolly calculating, Slezak a memorable villain, and they are joined by another veteran film villain, George Zucco, who appears as the judge when Kelly's scheme catches up with him late in the film.

The Pirate (1948) is about the ebullient actor Serafin (Gene Kelly) who comes to a small Caribbean town and falls hard for the romantic Manuela (Judy Garland). She rejects him, saving her love only for the legendary pirate Macoco, whom she wishes would steal her away. So Serafin takes on the guise of the notorious pirate in order to win her heart. Though it flopped when released, The Pirate has become a cult classic often hailed as being ahead of its time. I've seen the film twice and still fail to see the appeal.Don't get me wrong: I love Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, and Cole Porter. Vincent Minelli is not among my favorite directors, but I usually admire his colorful style. It feels like someone got the most delicious ingredients for an ice cream sundae and ended up botching it big time, to the point where it's almost inedible. Porter's score is among his most unmemorable. Outside of "Be a Clown" (which is tucked away at the very end), I cannot hum a single one of them, a big flaw for a musical. The dancing is good though, and Gene Kelly is in fine form.Unfortunately, the dancing cannot save a lackluster production. Kelly and Garland are stuck playing characters who come off as annoying, especially Garland's Manuela, who spends most of her screen time shrilly screaming and whining all her lines. Kelly hams it up to the stratosphere, which ceases to be funny fast. The comedy plays much better in the more underplayed scenes, like when Manuela is going off to sacrifice her virtue to the attractive "Macoco" to save the town and another girl offers to take her place. Manuela tersely replies, "He asked for ME." The sets are so stagey they're distracting. While this theatricality works in the ballet dream sequence in the middle of the film or something like the Broadway Melody portion of Singin' in the Rain (1952), here it just comes across as cheap. The costumes are awful: garish parodies of 1830s fashion with ugly patterns. Poor Judy gets saddled with the most ridiculous outfits.I know I'll be voted down for this. Ah well, such is life. This seems to be a movie a lot of people enjoy and I would never want to take that away from them. I wish I could have enjoyed it too, but it's not hard to see why this flopped so hard back in '48.

Highly stylized this is not an essential MGM musical along the lines of Meet Me in St. Louis or the Wizard of Oz but there is much that is memorable here aside from the Be a Clown finale. Perhaps Gene Kelly's most physical performance his pirate dance is phenomenal and he is loose and full of fun. Watching Judy there are hints everywhere of the jittery mess she was behind the camera while this was in production, she is almost never still for an instant throughout the entire film, especially her hands, and she is thin to the point of gauntness. Even with her evident spiral she still manages to be both funny and moving and the voice is in great expressive shape. A huge flop upon release its reputation has grown with the years and it can now be viewed as the artwork it is.