Starring Charles Collins, Steffi Duna, Frank Morgan, and Luis Alberni
Directed by Lloyd Corrigan
Music by Richard Rodgers; Lyrics by Lorenz Hart
Now for one of the most peculiar cult flops I've ever seen. It's not scary, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, or inherently offensive or badly made, like Golden Dawn. In fact, it's history. This was the second feature-length film made in two-strip Technicolor after the comedy Becky Sharp in 1935, and the first musical. In a way, this odd little film could be thought of as the ancestor of all those MGM and 20th Century Fox Technicolor extravaganzas set in the past that flooded theaters in the 40's and 50's. How well does the story of a dancing teacher in 1820's Boston who ends up literally teaching dance to Spanish ladies to save his life look nowadays? Let's begin in Boston, as dancing master Jonathan Pride (Collins) teaches the well-to-do of the city how to dance the scandalous waltz, and find out...
The Story: Jonathan is supposed to be on his way to visit a relative, but he's shanghaied by pirates and is forced to work for them. He manages to escape off the coast of Spanish California, where the overly anxious residents of a small town think he's a pirate and they're being invaded. It doesn't help that he ends up in the home of the town's mayor Don Emilio Perena (Morgan) and Perena's niece Serafina (Duna) thinks he's after her.
Don Emilio and the town jailer Pamfilo (Alberni) order him hung, until he shows them what he can do. Serafina insists on waltzing lessons. She protests how close they are at first, but gradually falls in love with Jonathan. Trouble is, she already has a suitor, the wealthy Captain of the Guards Don Balthazar (Victor Varconi). What they don't know is Don Balthazar was fired from the Army and is looking to loot the town with his men. Jonathan rounds up the local Native population, using a war dance to convince them that the best way to get what everyone wants is to clear out this phony before he marries Serefina and his men take over the town.
The Song and Dance: There's a lot to like here. For one thing, I'm glad they found the color in 2015 after it was lost for 80 years. The color copy currently on Tubi is stunning, a decent restoration with colors that really pop. For another, this is one of the most unique musicals I've ever seen. You just don't see a lot of movies, let alone musicals, that combine pirates (briefly), Native uprisings, swashbuckling heroics, big chorus numbers, bandits, mistaken identity, and a historical setting that doesn't often turn up outside of the Zorro franchise. The dancing genuinely is that good, especially Jonathan's solos.
The Numbers: We open in Jonathan's Boston dance studio with his students doing awkward waltzing to a tinkling music box. Jonathan does a solo to an instrumental "Yankee Doodle" to show them how it's done. He literally dances for his life to prove that he's a dancing teacher on the noose platform as the mayor and jailer want to hang him just for some excitement. Serefina performs "Are You My Love?" outside Jonathan's door and in her room as they both prepare for the dancing lesson. Jonathan is so impressed with her flamenco solo to a Spanish-language song that he wonders why she needs to learn dance from him.
He does teach her the waltz using his music box, but the moment he touches her waist, she thinks he's being improper, and he ends up back in jail. She finally works on it with her servant and realizes that it's dancing, not impropriety. He sings "When You're Dancing the Waltz" to her in a moonlit courtyard...and they're so lovely, everyone in the town joins in and turns it into a huge production number. Jonathan's "War Dance" is contrasted to the pious Spanish hymn the townspeople perform as they enter the church for Serefina and Don Balthazar's wedding. The move ends with another lavish, cape-flourishing chorus number to "When You're Dancing the Waltz."
What I Don't Like: This can get a little too unique at times. It feels like a mish-mash of ideas someone just threw together that would look nice in color. Despite the title, the pirates appear for all of five minutes in the beginning of the movie. We have the townspeople continually insisting that Jonathan is a pirate, despite his protests to the contrary, Jonathan teaching the ladies to dance, and when Don Balthazar and his men show up in the second half. That would be enough for three normal historical musicals, and none of those stories really have much to do with one another.
Not to mention, for a movie called Dancing Pirate, there could have been a lot more music. There are only two Rodgers and Hart songs, both of which are far from the team's best work, two major chorus numbers, and three solos, two for Jonathan, one for Serefina. There's also the simple fact that I can understand why Collins would only do a few more films after this, and only one with any kind of starring role. He is a wonderful dancer and is charming enough, but he's also kind of dull for a man whose dancing sparks a Native uprising.
The Big Finale: Interesting curiosity if you want to learn more about color and dance on the screen, but nothing you need to go out of your way for.
Home Media: It's in the public domain, and both color and black and white versions are easy to find. (The color version at Tubi is missing a few minutes, for some reason, but the copy is decent.)
No comments:
Post a Comment