TeenzTen An action-packed slog

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Alistair Olson After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

JohnHowardReid Producer: George A. Hirliman. Executive producer: Edward L. Alperson. Copyright 21 December 1936 by Grand National Films, Inc. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release through Regal Film Distributors. (The Film Daily published a review of this film on 17 April 1936). 66 minutes. SYNOPSIS: In order to obtain credit, a personable but down-on-his-luck schooner master spreads a false rumor that he has uncovered a vast pirate treasure. Setting: an island in the South Seas.NOTES: A companion piece to We're in the Legion Now. Both films were formerly distributed to TV by Screen Gems in washed-out black-and-white versions. It's good that we now have them in color, even if both prints are a bit worn and splicy. Still, there are so many jump cuts in the original negatives, one or two dozen more is not going to make much difference.COMMENT: Curiosity value (piqued by ingenious cast credit titles) but little else is on offer here in this scrappily directed South Seas travelogue-musical-Boy's Own Paper pirate adventure. Perhaps I'm being a bit hard on the film. The brothel madame (convincingly played by Margaret Irving) would never gain a place in Boy's Own. Nor would the sadistic Samson (played with a little too much enthusiasm by Roy D'Arcy). And the lovely but faithless Movita who enjoys the spectacle of men fighting over her, is yet another no-no.I also found pouring-on-the-charm-and-casting-off-the-shirt George Houston a bit hard to take as the singing hero, whilst somewhat plain and scratchy-voiced Marian Nixon failed to engender my interest in the heroine. The most capable and interesting performance came, oddly enough, from screenwriter Crane Wilbur who handed himself a sizable role as a sympathetic doctor. I also liked Harold Howard's crafty interpretation of a money-pinching yet money-mad trader. And it's good to say that Vince Barnett's portrayal of the hero's comic sidekick is a lot more restrained in Calamity than in his over-the-top Legion.Reinhardt's direction rated as one or two pegs more competent than Crane Wilbur's handling of We're in the Legion Now (which is faint praise indeed), though he does manage to capture enough sleazy island scenery to put us off traveling to Polynesia for life.

mark.waltz I truly dislike the word inappropriate. It has been overused, abused and slaughtered to death in our language of today. However, when it is used "appropriately", as it is here, it has an important factor in expressing a feeling. "Captain Calamity" had the potential to be a nice little color adventure from a growing poverty row studio, but there is definitely in this case an inappropriate use of humor throughout the film which comes at the strangest times. Jokes are thrown in as some of the characters are killed or lay there dying or injured, leaving a sort of unnecessary sardonic feeling to the events occurring on screen. It all surrounds a South Seas search for treasure and the fight between captain George Houston and various pirates who come in and out of the action. Then, add some rather insipid songs, and you have what might have been a nice little operetta on stage in the early 1920's, but is just an eye roller 15 years later.For one thing, certain characters seem to be splitting their loyalties down the middle, on Houston's side one minute then betraying him or plotting against him in the next with no apparent motive. Marian Nixon is his love interest, a pretty young lady with an alcoholic foster father (Crane Wilbur), while "Mutiny on the Bounty's" Movita is the second female lead in a storyline with Houston's loyal right-hand man Roy D'Arcy, a comic relief type who jokes around at the most awkward times. Margaret Irving adds some spark as the patroness of a South Seas dive, while Vince Barnett is the epitome of sleaziness as the greedy Burp. While you can't expect Technicolor like quality from a poverty row film, the over-use of blue makes it seem rather tinted than colored. Certain major studios used this form of color for their short subjects. But in the end it is the fault of the script which makes this less than memorable even though it is still worth a look to see the progress color films were making.

vovazhd Captain Calamity is an early pirate film about Captain Bill Jones, a sailor who accepts a gold coin for transporting a man. When he pays off with the gold coin, speculation spreads that he has a treasure. Soon after, a band of pirates are after him and the gold. The plot was really strange and convoluted, so the details were lost to me. This is partly because because the technical mistakes were so distracting that it was hard to care about anything. When watching the film, I quickly realized that it was a complete mess. I was foolish and had vowed to watch through the whole thing, resulting in one of my worst movie experiences.The acting is downright horrible. Captain Bill Jones could have been quite a charismatic character, but he ends up being a complete clown. The other acting was just as terrible, and the characters themselves were bland and forgettable. I could not bring myself to care about any single character. The dialog was also terrible.The camera-work is some of the sloppiest I have ever seen. There is no sense of orientation because nearly all the scenes focus directly on the characters or their faces, so the surrounding environment is a complete mystery. This leads to immense continuity confusion. It does not help that the editing is also bad; the scene changes seem very jerky and unnatural.Captain Calamity fails on every level that I judge movies on. I had no fun at all; I was hoping that the (potentially) exciting seafaring theme might overshadow the problems, but it was nowhere near the case. I do not even want to think about watching the movie again, ever. It looks like Captain Calamity is largely forgotten or ignored by today's viewers, which I think is a worthy fate.

classicsoncall With a name like "Captain Calamity", I was surprised coming out of the film at how entertaining it actually was. George Houston portrays the title character, Captain Bill Jones, who gets a lot of mileage out of a single gold doubloon. Without ever actually lying about discovering a sunken treasure, Jones' tall tale takes on a life of it's own after the seed has been planted with a nefarious saloon keeper named Joblin (Harold Howard). After that, the treasure grows with each telling of the tale, until one imagines the Schooner Marigold sinking under it's weight.To be sure, the film is not an award winner, but it is a fun adventure. George Houston, who I'd seen before in some of his Lone Rider Westerns, is much more spirited here, as he performs a host of singing numbers while grinning broadly. You never quite believe he's going to turn over his leading lady Marian Nixon to a former beau after all the commotion over the non existent gold.The best lines of the film are delivered by Captain Jones as he re-establishes his acquaintance with Joblin henchman Black Pierre. During introductions, Jones remarks - "You know of all the guys I don't like, you're the one I like most". Later in the film Jones reaffirms his mutual trust and distrust of Pierre at the same time - "I'd be quicker to believe you than any other liar I know..." Besides Marian Nixon's character Madge Lewis, the film is complemented by Margaret Irving as a conniving Madame Gruen in league with the film's bad guys, and a pretty island girl named Annana. I got a kick out of her screen credit, reminiscent of one for a character in the 1970's TV series 'Hawaii Five-O". In that one you had Zulu as 'Kono', and here we have Movita as 'Annana'. My question in each case - Why couldn't they have just used their own names? As mentioned earlier, George Houston went on to do eleven films for Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) in the period 1940-1942 as 'The Lone Rider'. Though I haven't seen any of those in which he sings, he does belt out the Lone Rider theme song over that series' opening credits. Houston's voice was by some estimates just a bit too formal and booming for lowly 'B' Westerns, but in 'Calamity', he does sound pretty good; that salt sea air does wonders.As time goes by, little known titles like "Captain Calamity" seem to be finding a wider audience with assorted compilations. I found it as part of a ten film, three DVD 'Pirates' set recently released by St. Clair Vision, which has also put together similar collections in other genres. It's a terrific way to spend a few hours at a very reasonable price (under ten dollars), and get to see a lot of actors before they became big name Hollywood stars.