The Pirate

The Pirate was MGM's most expensive musical. Starring Gene Kelly and Judy Garland, directed by Vincente Minelli, and with songs by Cole Porter, it figured to be another notch in the MGM pantheon of great musicals. But it turned out to be a critical and financial flop. Why? Because most viewers didn't get the joke.

Based on a play by S.N. Behrman, The Pirate is a spoof of swashbuckling films,with a winking eye the audience. This kind of parody apparently wasn't in vogue then, and the film has had a bit of a reassessment. I kind of liked it, appreciating the broad humor and zest that was on display by the performers.

Garland plays a young Spanish woman in the Caribbean. She is to be married off to the village's mayor, (Walter Slezak), a corpulent but rich man, who has no desire to travel. Kelly is a traveling entertainer, who falls in love with Garland at first site.

Garland, it turns out, has a romantic fascination with a legendary pirate, Black Macoco, whose whereabouts are unknown. Kelly, learning this, pretends to be the pirate, but...well, I'll won't spoil the surprise, but mistaken identity is key in this picture.

The songs by Porter are largely unforgettable, but great a whiz-bang treatment. Garlands sings "Mack the Black," which amusingly plays on the two different pronunciations of "Caribbean," while the most famous song is "Be a Clown," which Kelly performs just as he is to be lead to the gallows. Needless to say, he doesn't get hanged.

Kelly arranged the dances, and once again they are muscular but balletic. He has a fantasy sequence as the pirate, wearing shorts that make him look like the Village People's version of a pirate. Slezak is very funny in his role, and Garland is great, though you can start to see the effects of her chemical dependency on her face. Apparently she slowed production a great deal.