The second of two films Yvonne de Carlo made for Nat Holt at Paramount. Both were written by Fran Gruber with Richard Arlen in a support role. The first, Silver City, had a slightly convoluted plot - this one is incredibly convoluted.
It needn't have been - I mean, really the film should have been about unjustly-accused-of-piracy John Ireland trying to get his money back, taking over a ship, fighting baddies, hiding who he really is on board ship, falling in love with Yvonne de Carlo who changes sides, getting his money.
But the script has two main flaws. It slips the heroic duties between Ireland and Forrest Tucker and Richard Arlen - the latter in particular didn't need to be in the film at all. I kept waiting for two of them to die, or turn bad, or something... but nope, they're all the same sort of person - rough and heroic. If the baddy thinks Tucker is Ireland, which is fine, why not have the baddy kill Tucker? Why have Arlen in the film at all? If they needed to give him a gig, make him the bad guy. (James Craig, borrowed from MGM, is fine by the way).
Also so much of the script fells contrived. Like, Ireland, Tucker and Arlen take over the ship... but they can't go looking for treasure they have to go to Australia to raise money... (NB there are scenes in a fictitious northern port of Australia called "Castleton"... it's not particularly Aussie of course). The real reason is so the slavers can turn up... and be put in the brig... and then when they're sailing there's all these sailors, there's the slave captain and his first mate, and some other sailor, and various sailors mutiny and everyone changes sides. There's all these villains... the slaver, the slaver's first mate, Jim Craig, de Carlo, de Carlo's father. I kept thinking "consolidate all these frigging characters". It's a mess. And it's pointless.
The colour is impressive, the quality of acting solid (even if Ireland spends far too much time shirtless for someone who isn't in particularly good shape), the action good. Gruber just messes it up with a needlessly complicated script with too many characters.
De Carlo is fun. She doesn't have a huge role (it should have been bigger). She has a very camp moment on board listening to some musicians play an island tune and because she's half-Polynesian the jungle drums take hold of her and she goes into this dance routine. Although De Carlo came to fame as a replacement Maria Montez she was rarely as campy - but on this occasion, it's pure camp.
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