Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #13: The Buccaneer (1958)

 

Famed Hollywood director Cecil DeMille had smashing success with the remake of his own Ten Commandments. He sought to also remake his 1938 film The Buccaneer, adding color and more lavish production values. Unfortunately he fell ill, and would die a year after this movie’s release. His son-in-law Anthony Quinn (yes, that Anthony Quinn) would direct. DeMille was now just a producer, though he does show up at the start of the film to provide historical context.

The titular buccaneer is Pierre Lafitte, a French pirate who operated along the Gulf Coast. Lafitte was actually quite popular with the citizens of New Orleans, as the goods he stole or smuggled were sold at cheaper prices. He also engaged in slave trading, a fact the movie conveniently ignores. He didn’t actually buy recently captured slaves, but intercepted Spanish ships carrying them. While one may argue that the unfortunates were already on their way to enslavement, Lafitte still profited off their misfortune. Historical memory of Lafitte has been helped by his participation in the defense of New Orleans during the War of 1812.

Yul Brynner plays Lafitte. He doesn’t have a French accent, but he does manage to look dark and intriguing. Brynner also sported a wig for this movie! Charles Boyer plays his right hand man Dominique You, a real life French privateer who turned full pirate after arriving in New Orleans. Other historical figures include Governor William Claiborne (E.G. Marshall) and more famously Andrew Jackson. Charlton Heston returned to the role five years after The President’s Lady. He does a good job providing real gravitas to his role while still having some down-to-earth interactions with his diverse array of soldiers. He’s the only authority figure to really command Lafitte’s respect.

The main tension of the movie is whether Lafitte will help the American cause in the War of 1812 or not. National control of New Orleans in the 18^th-early 19^th Century had changed hands several times, with the French, Spanish, and Americans each having mastery over it at different times. Understandably, Lafitte and his pirates are more concerned with making money, and it makes no difference which of the revolving imperial powers claims to rule their turf.

Lafitte (Yul Brynner) sits amongst some of his pirates

The movie’s plotline is actually pretty accurate in following the course of historical events. Even moments like Lafitte coming through a window to meet with Jackson have their basis in reality. Lafitte meets the British, who want his aid in navigating Louisiana’s numerous waterways and swamps. When he says he needs time to think it over, the British land troops in his area anyways. The United States then attacks and imprisons most of his men, but Andrew Jackson gets them back on the same side for the Battle of New Orleans.

The only major inaccuracies come from the female characters, both of which are fictional. Claire Bloom plays Bonnie Brown, the fiery daughter of another pirate who wants Lafitte to focus more aggressively on piracy. Inger Stevens plays Annette Claiborne, one of two daughters of Governor Claiborne. The real Claiborne only had one daughter and she was a toddler in 1815. The fictional Annette serves as a love interest for Lafitte, and is depicted as the reason he’s leaning towards the United States. Actually, when it comes to all the made up romances on my watchlist, this one’s not too bad and has some tragic drama around the corner involving another pirate's assault on a US vessel.

Andrew Jackson (Charlton Heston) stands amongst the defensive line at New Orleans (https://commentaramafilms.blogspot.com/2012/04/guest-review-buccaneer-paramount-1958.html)

I was surprised by how much I was entertained by this movie, considering that despite its claims to being a swashbuckler romp, there’s barely any real action. We keep showing up in the aftermath of actual moments of violence, such as a rogue pirate’s attack on an American ship and the assault on Lafitte’s pirate base. The only sizeable action we get is the Battle of New Orleans itself, and even then it’s a bit of a cocktease. The buildup is marvelous. We really feel the tense atmosphere, with historically accurate fog obscuring the view of the approaching British Army. Andrew Jackson’s army has to be filled out with civilians and pirates with a shaky reputation (I’m glad that this movie, made in the 50s, accurately shows that Native Americans and black civilians helped out). There’s a warm up duel between British rockets and American artillery. Then the assault happens, heralded by bagpipes…and the main action of the battle lasts less than a minute before we fade into a victory party.

Despite failing to deliver on the action front, the Buccaneer is a fun film to watch thanks to its popping colors and great cast. Brynner has a lot of natural charisma and Heston kills it as Andrew Jackson. A fun, but not great movie.

Rating: 6/10

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #12: The President's Lady (1953)

 

After suffering a series of inserted love interests and love triangles, it’s time for a real historical romance. The President’s Lady, adapted from Irving Stone’s 1951 novel, tells the story of Rachel Donelson Robards, who would become the wife of President Andrew Jackson. She would not make it into the White House, but is considered a First Lady because her husband never remarried.

Of the presidential marriages, this one certainly earns dramatic attention. Rachel was in an unhappy marriage with Lewis Robard when she met Andrew Jackson. Thanks to a misunderstanding, cause by spotty late 18^th Century communications, they thought her husband had granted a divorce when they married. Now they were dogged by accusations of adultery, which fell more heavily on Rachel because she had been married.  The President’s Lady focuses not only on this, but the challenges of being married to a man who often has to be gone for long periods of time in service of his country.

I’ve formed something of a trilogy on my watchlist. I somehow ended up with three 1950s films with Charlton Heston in them. Thankfully his portrayal of Andrew Jackson is much better than his turn as William Clark in Far Horizons. I never imagined anything close to Heston’s voice for the tough military and political figure, but he manages to look the part and balances Jackson’s toughness and quick-tempered moments with his absolute loving behavior towards his wife. Heston did such a good job that he would reprise the role in old man makeup for the next entry on my list: The Buccaneer. Of course, many people today despise Jackson, so they may not like his more positive portrayal. But then again, this movie doesn’t delve deeply into his political career and more into his very close relationship with his wife.

Andrew Jackson (Charlton Heston) write home to Rachel from one of his military campaigns

The actual main character is Rachel Donelson (Susan Hayward). Susan Hayward was known for her real-life dramas, so this movie is right up her alley. She was also in her 30s, which meant she could pull off playing the character from her youth in the 18^th century to her death in 1828. She provides narration which both helps us get into her mind and also understand the flow of history. After all, this is an hour-and-a-half film covering four decades.

Rachel (Susan Hayward) as she
appears at the start of the movie

We don’t get many historical figures outside the main couple, and while it would be nice to see all the political machinations and struggles, that isn’t the point of this story. The first act of the film has Rachel’s first husband cheat on her with the slave women (the only real life information we have is that the marriage was unhappy). Thus she more easily fall in love with frontier lawyer Andrew Jackson. She keeps up with him both verbally and in escapes from hostile Indians, proving that she’s the best match for him.

When it’s revealed that she unwittingly committed adultery and bigamy, the real drama starts. They manage to get a proper divorce and marriage, but Jackson’s critics and rivals keep bringing up her past mistakes to get at her husband. As Andrew rises further in political life, other prominent wives refuse to socialize with her, forcing Rachel to live a somewhat lonely life in their big Tennessee home The Hermitage. This is made worse as Andrew Jackson literally has to leave for months to years at a time as he fights in wars and serves in Congress. Things come to a head at the climax during the 1828 election. People in the John Quincy Adams campaign start attacking Rachel to undermine Jackson’s chances for the presidency. Andrew wins anyways, but Rachel dies. In both the movie and real life, Andrew Jackson, already a fiery man who would get into duels, blamed it on the stress caused by his opponents, even claiming that his wife was murdered.

The President’s Lady is not the type of movie I would go out of my way to rewatch, but I have to say it’s not bad. Because the narrative sticks close to history, the romance is more believable and interesting than what I’ve been getting with a lot of these older films. I really cared about Rachel to the point that I forgot about some of Andrew Jackson’s more heinous moments like the forced removal of the Cherokee. This is a nice, old film that’s not over-long.

Rating: 7/10

Here's a very simple old trailer with some of Alfred Newman's music.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #11: The Far Horizons (1955)

The Lewis and Clark Expedition is one of the most fascinating adventures in American history. President Thomas Jefferson had just overseen the Louisiana Purchase, an incredibly cheap acquisition of French lands to the west. Eager to have it explored, he had his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, lead a collection of soldiers and civilians to explore the new American lands. They would map out the territory, describe and collect flora and fauna, and forge peaceful relations with the various Indian peoples. William Clark, a former soldier, would help lead this group, known as the Corps of Discovery.

Surprisingly, the Lewis and Clark Expedition received little attention for much of America’s history, but exploded in recognition in the 20^th Century. There have been numerous novels, documentaries, and references, not to mention Stephen Ambrose’s bestseller Undaunted Courage. However there has been only one actual movie, the 1955 Far Horizons, and boy, could we use another attempt.

Far Horizons is based on a novel called Sacajawea of the Shoshones, written by Della Gould Emmons. I cannot say how closely the movie follows the novel, so I won’t rag on Emmons, but this could explain some of the issues with the story. The movie begins with an ahistorical love triangle (I’m getting a lot of love triangles on this watchlist) between Lewis, Clark, and Julia Hancock. Meriwether Lewis (Fred MacMurray), gets permission to court Julia (Barbara Hale), but when he’s called in by the President, William Clark (Charlton Heston) unknowingly steals her from him. I can’t speak too much about the actors’ abilities to play Lewis and Clark, because the script doesn’t dwell on their actual real-life personalities.

The movie then skips the entire first act of the Expedition to get them to the Minnataree camp, where Shoshone Sacagawea is a slave. After she helps them avoid an ambush, she joins the expedition, where she and Clark fall in love (in real life Clark was affectionate towards her, but not in that way). And that’s the rest of the movie. Everybody is trying to get their hands on Sacagawea or commenting on how Clark is love with her. Oh, and the young Shoshone woman is played by a mid-30s Donna Reed in brown face. If the filmmakers couldn’t find a Native American actress to their liking, they could have at least gone for an Asian or Latina. To make things worse, Donna Reed’s brown eyes still aren’t dark enough, so the brown face is more noticeable. Many know that the real Sacagawea was pregnant at the time and would give birth in the middle of the expedition. The pregnancy is conveniently omitted, even though the fact that she went on the expedition with a child is what makes her even more awesome as a historical figure.

Clark gets mushy with Sacagawea

But I suppose the pregnancy was too inconvenient for Hollywood, who wanted her free for romantic plotting. As a result her real-life husband Charbonneau, a French trapper, is reimagined as a greasy, fat villain who is trying to make her his wife while also sabotaging the expedition. I’m all for a Sacagawea-centric movie, as she was legitimately a badass who turned out to be invaluable to the expedition. But what we get here is an emotional, weepy character. If you want a cool Sacagawea, check out the Night at the Museum movies. There she’s a wax figure brought to life at night, and she ends up as a couple with Teddy Roosevelt. Now that’s a power couple.

Back to this crummy movie. History buffs will notice that most of the real-life members of the expedition are absent. Aside from the aforementioned characters, we have Sergeant Glass (William Demarest), who’s more of a stock sergeant character than anything. Most notable by his absence is York, Clark’s slave. As a black man, York was fascinating to the Indians and very popular with the ladies (I’ll spare you the details). The filmmakers might have been trying to sanitize Clark by removing the presence of a black slave.

Almost every moment of this movie left me frustrated. Historically inaccurate movies can be good or even great if the changes lead to an engrossing story (special shout-out to Last Samurai). But this one was just painful. The Lewis and Clark Expedition famously suffered only one fight with the Indians and one fatality, a poor soldier who got his appendix ruptured. It’s incredible how almost nobody died when they faced grizzly bears, sickness, dangerous rapids, and tense confrontations with the Natives. Actually, a ruptured appendix sounds like a far worse way to go. The movie has several shootouts with the Natives, and to add tension at least a few of the explorers are killed.

The true story was so fascinating and exciting that it’s just baffling how Hollywood had to make so many changes. We get barely anything about the Expedition’s objectives. Nobody is observing animals, we get barely any time on the scenery, and literally the only discussion of mapping out rivers has to include the romance. Upon hearing that Clark named one branch of a river Sacagawea, Lewis reminds him of his engagement by naming the other branch Julia.

Lewis and Clark meet with a chieftain (https://mubi.com/en/us/films/the-far-horizons)

I’m noticing that most of the weaker movies on my watchlist are from the 50’s. One could say that Hollywood was too formulaic and risk-averse in this period, churning out uninteresting historical films that failed to stand the test of time, but this was also the era of the big swords-and-sandal epics.

Anyways, this movie was trash. For a history buff it’s torture, and I imagine it’s boring for anybody who doesn’t care. The plot was so mind-bogglingly inaccurate and awful that I’ll describe it after my rating.

Rating: 1/10

So Lewis is depressed after learning that Julia Hancock went for Clark. Despite having the top billed actor, Lewis turns into a supporting character for Clark. At the Minnataree settlement, Charbonneau agrees to lead the expedition into a trap so the Minnataree men can kill them. Sacagawea escapes enslavement to warn the explorers, who set up a trap of their own. She gets to come along, as she can guide them.

The box of maps falls overboard during a rough moment on the river. Sacagawea dives into the river to save it. She did this in real life (while still pregnant) and earned massive respect from the men. Unfortunately the movie has her caught in a current so Clark can save her, undermining her defining moment of bravery.

Sacagawea starts to bond with Clark. He nicknames her “Janey” (an actual accurate touch from history), but Charbonneau wants his paws on her. After a knife fight, Charbonneau gets kicked off the expedition (in real life he went with them the whole way). Lewis is starting to get angry about Sacagawea, as she’s making Clark unfaithful to Julia. They reach the Shoshone. As in real life the Shoshones and Americans establish firm relations since Sacagawea was brought back to them. The movie has other plans, too. It turns out that Sacagawea was promised to a young warrior named Wild Eagle (Larry Pennell). Uh-oh!

Lewis demands that Sacagawea stay behind, because he doesn’t like the effect she has on Clark. Sacagawea runs along the bank like a dog who doesn’t want to be left behind. She tires out and has to be brought back on board. At the same time Wild Eagle, who wants Sacagawea back, stalks the Expedition, picking off men when they separate from the main body. It gets to the point where Wild Eagle helps out with an assault on the Expedition while they’re on the river. After a big shootout, we skip forward to the Pacific Ocean (and we don’t’ see any interactions with the native peoples there).

Then we zip right to Washington DC. Since Charbonneau has been separated from Sacagawea by the plot and she has no baby boy, she’s free to come back with Lewis and Clark. Julia Hancock doesn’t like how Clark has fallen for this Indian woman, but fortunately for her Sacagawea realizes she doesn’t fit in white society and after tearfully breaking things up heads back west.

Don’t watch this movie.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #10: Tripoli (1950)

 America’s first major war after gaining independence was not its rematch with Britain in 1812, or any prolonged war with a Native American people, but the Barbary Wars, a series of attempts to get North African states to cease piratical operations against American shipping. The states of Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli (current day Libya), were Islamic Ottoman-supported states that, operating under the doctrine of Jihad, constantly attacked European shipping. The pirates would attack merchant and passenger vessels, seizing any goods and enslaving the crew and passengers. European nations would have to pay ransoms to free the slaves. The British government had willingly paid heavy sums to protect their merchant ships, which meant their economic competitors would suffer more seizures. Independent of Britain, the United States merchants were now fair game. After several humiliations, the US formed a proper navy and conducted the Barbary Wars, forcing the African states to stop.

This long paragraph provides background for Tripoli, a historical adventure film that, like many older Hollywood films, steers clear of the heavier elements of the story. We don’t hear about European prisoners being turned into slaves until they can be ransomed (the slave trade in this part of the world was actually quite massive, though by 1800 it had turned more into a ransom racket as the Islamic world was in decline) and there is nothing about the religious justification used by the state of Tripoli. Instead we get a typical, though exotic, adventure flick with a heavy infusion of ahistorical romance.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #9: The Patriot (2000)

 

The last of my American Revolution movies is The Patriot, the “largest” film portraying the conflict and one of the more controversial. Its director, Roland Emmerich, is famously a German who fell in love with the United States (perhaps not unlike Prussian officer Baron von Steuben!), so this movie is right up his alley. The Patriot is a semi-fictionalized account of Francis Marion’s guerilla war in South Carolina. Marion had already been an officer in the Continental Army, but rose to fame as a guerilla leader when the British mounted its major southern campaign in 1780. His effective hit-and-run attacks on British and Loyalist forces earned him the moniker “The Swamp Fox.”

Earlier drafts presented a more accurate and less black-and-white picture of the fighting in the South, but Emmerich insisted that he be allowed to make changes for a more crowd-pleasing good vs. evil narrative. This explains why Francis Marion is renamed Benjamin Martin. The historical Marion and his men sometimes engaged in can be considered war crimes. Marion was also a slaveholder, and had orders from above to execute any black man found fighting for or aiding the British.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #8: Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor (2003)

 

Benedict Arnold is the Judas of America’s national history. One of the Continental Army’s best generals, he faced frustration as other generals and members of Congress took credit for his accomplishments or passed him over for promotion. After marrying into a Loyalist family and being accused of profiteering, he decided to work with the British and almost gave them the important location of West Point. Discovered, he escaped to join the British Army and would die much later in England, reviled by the United States and treated with contempt or indifference by most of the British.

Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor was an A&E television film that sought to give Arnold (portrayed by Aidan Quinn) a sympathetic portrayal. The Movie is for the most part accurate, but almost everything just feels…off. One major culprit is the rushed narrative. A two to three hour film could have better fleshed our Arnold’s psychology so we actually feel something when he turns on his country. Of course, it would need better dialogue and some better casting choices as well. A&E was able to make low-budget historical films like The Crossing and Shackleton look great, but you can really feel the low budget with this one.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #7: John Paul Jones (1959)

 

John Paul Jones was the first of a string of big budget productions from Samuel Bronston. Bronston really wanted colorful spectacle on the big screen, but this came back to bite him when he produced two major bombs in the 60s. Surprisingly, his career wasn’t killed in the crib by John Paul Jones, which made one quarter of its budget back. It's not too hard to see why this movie wasn't a major hit with audiences.

John Paul Jones was the first major naval hero of the United States, scoring victories, taking daring ventures such as an actual raid on home British soil at Whitehaven, and, most famously, shutting down a surrender demand by shouting, “I have not yet begun to fight!” This energetic figure is poorly served by his biopic. The first problem is that it’s one of those “greatest hits” films in well under two hours. It’s hard to create a gripping character arc or build up suspense when you’re bouncing around between times and locations. The movie itself begins aboard a modern American war vessel, where an officer with a “golly gee” voice starts a narration of Jones’ life. From there we see him as a child in Scotland, a regular merchant captain, a Virginia planter, and finally a naval officer sparring with British ships, making amphibious raids, and rubbing elbows with major political figures.

The other problem is the performance of Robert Stack. Stack looks too bored to be such a thrilling character. Then again, he doesn’t have much character beats to work with. The film does threaten us with a love triangle between him, Patrick Henry, and governor’s daughter Dorothea Danders (for some reason they altered her historical name Dandridge), but it’s quietly put away as the governor is dead set against him courting his daughter anyways.