Product: Captain Kidd
Rating: 5.0
an obscure gem
This is a pirate film right up there with The Seahawks and Captain Blood. It has Charles Laughton at his scene chewing best, stars the underrated Randolph Scott. But its glory is in the wonderful character actors that we no longer have. These include the protean Reginald Owen, the evergreen John Carradine, and the also very under appreciated, sardonic Henry Daniell, a literate man, who plays the cold but laser intelligent King William III. The camera work, lighting, sets, and costumes are superb, and strays from the banal historical reality of the real, bumbling Captain Kidd to create a kind of seaborne baroque film noir.