Captain Kidd [1945] Charles Laughton torrent

http://bayimg.com/jaOaLaaCE

Captain Kidd (1945)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037576/


Captain Kidd (1945) is a film starring Charles Laughton, Randolph Scott, Barbara Britton, and John Carradine, directed by Rowland V. Lee, produced by Benedict Bogeaus and James Nasser, music conduced by Werner Janssen, and released by United Artists.


Charles Laughton ... Capt. William Kidd
Randolph Scott ... Adam Mercy / Adam Blayne
Barbara Britton ... Lady Anne Dunstan
John Carradine ... Orange Povey
Gilbert Roland ... Jose Lorenzo
John Qualen ... Bart Blivens
Sheldon Leonard ... Cyprian Boyle
William Farnum ... Capt. Rawson
Henry Daniell ... King William III
Reginald Owen ... Cary Shadwell

Ten years after his Captain Bligh was cast adrift by Clark Gables Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Charles Laughton was recruited by independent producer Benedict Bogeaus to assay the title role of a similarly notorious historical mariner for Captain Kidd (1945). While this modestly budgeted effort played fast and loose with the facts concerning the fate of the late 17th century privateer and pirate, the project allowed Laughton to display considerable brio with his conniving characterization, and the end results are entertaining for it.

The narrative opens on the seas off Madagascar, where Kidd and his crew have just waylaid and torched the British ship 12 Apostles and murdered its captain, Lord Blayne. With the aid of his smarmy lieutenants, Povey (John Carradine), Lorenzo (Gilbert Roland), and Boyle (Sheldon Leonard), Kidd secretes the 12 Apostles treasure cargo in a cove, and returns to Englands shores, where he slanders Blayne as having stolen the goods and to have died in the attempt. By 1799, Kidd finds himself championed by Lord Bellomont for a commission from William III (Henry Daniell) to rendezvous off Madagascar with the Kings galleon Quedah Merchant. From there, he is to assure safe passage home through the pirate-laden seas for diplomat Lord Falsworth (Lumsden Hare) and his beautiful daughter Lady Ann (Barbara Britton). The audacious Kidd requests Blaynes lands and title as reward for a successful voyage.

To find the needed manpower for his vessel, Kidd turns to the convicted pirate populace of Newgate Prison, reasoning that rescue from the gallows will be sufficient guarantee of their gratitude. From this legion of the damned, he is impressed by the wit and bearing of a young seaman answering to Adam Mercy (Randolph Scott), and singles him out to serve as ships gunner. The promotion is of course calculated by the shrewdly suspicious Kidd, who cant help but wonder if the too-perfect Mercy isnt following a hidden agenda.

The pacing of Captain Kidd is relatively stately for a swashbuckler, but the films virtues are less to be found in the action sequences than in the uniformly strong performances. Besides the aforementioned, Reginald Owen is effective in providing the films lighter moments as the valet that the socially ambitious Kidd retains in order to provide himself with a veneer of breeding. Of course, Laughton binds the entire affair with his bravura villainy. His assumption of a slightly off suburban London accent is witty and appropriate; his revelation of the depth of his ambition quite chilling; his rage and pride at bay when finally confronted, animal and fearsome, Simon Callow observed in his Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor (Methuen).

As directed by period-drama veteran Rowland V. Lee, the scenario provided by Robert N. Lee and Norman Reilly Raine bore only tangential similarity to the life and exploits of the Scottish-born William Kidd. The historical facts behind the legendarily fearsome buccaneer actually make him out to be something of a patsy. Commissioned in 1695 by Whig politicians to prey upon cargo ships flying under the flag of France, Kidd turned to piracy outside his mandate when there were no French targets to be had. He boarded the Quedah Merchant in 1698 under the supposition that it was a French vessel, only to find it with a British captain. Kidds crew ultimately mutinied, and on his return to the colonies, he found himself deported to London to face piracy charges. Exculpatory evidence linking the Quedah Merchant to France was suppressed at the subsequent trial, and Kidds former backers quite literally left him to twist in the wind, as he was executed in 1701.