Yvonne de Carlo isn't remembered as a great star but from 1945 to 1951 or thereabouts she toplined a bunch of Universal action films, normally in technicolor. She's best remembered for her turns in film noirs like Brute Force and Criss Cross but in those movies she had support parts; in these she drove the action.
Here she's a damsel who is captured by a pirate - another version of the famed Lafitte. The bloke who plays her is some guy called Philip Friend, an English actor who had a decent career - but really didn't have the charisma for a leading man. This was his big chance and he's not up to it.
Fortunately there's a very strong gallery of supporting characters - Elsa Lancaster as a (surprise) eccentric old thing who befriends de Carlo; Robert Douglas as a nasty shipping magnate; Norman Lloyd as his secretary; Henry Daniell as a villainous captain. It's an excellent line up.
De Carlo is vivacious, looks good and sings a bunch of times - her real voice too, she was an opera person. As much as I like her films I don't think she was a top rank star - there's something about her that lacked great individuality, for me at any rate. Sometimes she could blend into the background a bit too much; for all her beauty and spirit, there's something about her that doesn't quite draw the eye. I think Maureen O'Hara was better at this sort of stuff. She is fun.
Its colourful, with good production values and there's a bit of action. I liked the setting of New Orleans around the time of Lafitte (Friend's buccaneer is based on that pirate).
The main problem, apart from the casting of Friend, is the story, which is needlessly and confusingly complicated. All the elements are there: Friend lives a sort of Scarlet Pimpernel existence, as a pirate and a respectable person on land; Friend has a bitchy fiance who hates de Carlo. But it isn't quite smoothed over.
I was unsure of the context and what was going on at times. Also I got what Friend's character was doing but not de Carlo's... was she out for money? Love? What was her character? She was really the protagonist - this needed to be fleshed out more. The film was geared too much to Friend.
Still, a decent second-tier swashbuckler from Universal when they were really strong in this area.
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