The Pirate was released on May 20th, 1948. It is directed by Vincent Minnelli (
Meet Me in St. Louis) with songs by the legendary Cole Porter. In it Manuela Alva's (Judy Garland) plan to marry Don Pedro (Walter Slezak), the mayor of her small Caribbean hometown of Calvados, are interrupted when the leader of a traveling circus named Serafin (Gene Kelly) falls in love with her and schemes to woo her away from Don Pedro. On discovering that Don Juan is actually the legendary pirate Macoco, who Manuela dreams of being wooed by, Serafin blackmails the phony mayor and pretends to be the Macoco himself.
This film had a really troubled production history. The script, by Frances Goodrich, went through several rewrites before the film entered production and one musical number had to be cut from the film and replaced when executives at MGM deemed it overly sexual during a test screening. The footage of this number was reportedly burned at the request of studio head Louis B. Mayer and no footage of it is known to exist today. Judy Garland's struggles with drug addiction and frequent angry confrontations with director Vincent Minnelli, at the time her husband, lead to her being off-set for much of the production and it was delayed as a result. Bad reactions to audience test screenings then caused the film to be re-edited. The film would ultimately flop at the box office, losing over 2 million dollars for MGM.
With all of this behind-the-scenes drama, you might expect the film to be a bit of a mess. In some ways this is true. The story, though interesting falls apart in the third act. Manuela has a deep seated, almost Freudian attraction toward Macoco (or at least the idea that she has of him in her head). The fact that Serafin, after discovering this, tries to use it to manipulate her is rather despicable as is his attempt to hypnotize her and his general attitude of "she must be attracted to me." Because of this I found her initial attitude toward him, one of annoyance and disdain, refreshing, at least until she falls in love with him for no apparent reason. The problem is not that Serafin isn't sufficiently punished for his actions, he is almost hanged after all, it's just that he needs to do more to make it up to
her and it all just feels to fast. The pacing in general is a little off, probably a result of the re-editing. It takes almost ten minutes before we get to the first musical number and, because some of the songs were cut, we hear songs that are meant to be reprises but now have to function on there own.
Despite this I still liked the film. The story mainly functions as a vehicle to string together the musical number and, fortunately, there really, really good here. Gene Kelly is so magnetic in this movie, so charismatic, athletic, graceful and comical that he immediately elevates any scene he's in and this goes double whenever singing and dancing is involved. From the burlesque, Latin flavor of "Niña" to the outrageous antics of "Be a Clown" Cole Porters songs for The Pirate are all unique, memorable and witty. The sets and costumes are just/simply beautiful and cinematographer Harry Stradling Sr. captures them really well. Robert Alton's choreography is brilliant and makes full use of both Kelly and Garland's talents. Vincent Minnelli directs the film with real panache, effortlessly using long takes and keeping everything together despite all of the drama happening off-camera.
In the end,
The Pirate is a messy film but one with a lot of production value. It's clear when watching it how much hard work and passion went into it. In the end I think it works, despite it flaws.
Score: 7/10
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