Captain Kidd

"There's no mask for a treacherous heart like an honest face"

One of Charles Laughton's more enduring and popular roles was that of the title character in Captain Kidd, a ruthless and crowd-pleasing anti-hero who gave the 'jolly' pirate stereotype a much-needed dose of villainy. Eroll Flyn, Douglas Fairbanks and Tyrone Power had popularised the buccaneering genre with their heroic (and highly inaccurate) portrayals of swashbuckling pirate leads throughout the 1920s and 1930s. People were more than familiar with what a pirating movie should entail by the time 1945 came around, so director Rowland V. Lee threw them a googlie with this cheeky subversion of the genre by focusing on infamous 17th century pirate William Kidd.



Captain Kidd (Laughton) is a more realistic pirate 'hero' than what we're used to seeing. It's probably fairer to say that he's the villain of the film but Laughton plays him as the hero and the film is mostly shown from his perspective. Randolph Scott plays the more traditional hero but it's a pretty small and thankless role, and he remains on the sidelines for most of the film. Kidd is a silver-tongued and underestimated figure, never to be trusted and not above murder or backstabbing as methods for achieving his ambitions of peerage to the Crown. We join Kidd after the burial of a treasure on a remote island, a few years after which he becomes a 'legitimate' employee of the King. Kidd is charged with the royal mission of escorting an ambassadorial delegation to safety, but his real aim is to secretly fleece them for all they're worth, gain a title and land from the King, and recover his buried treasure without having to share it with his former shipmates.



So, it's not the straightforward adventure that most of these sorts of films are. It's more about Kidd's manipulations and attempts to wipe out his former crewmates, in other words; to have his cake and eat it too. This means there isn't a whole lot of action, instead it's all double-crossing and scheming (a crucial ingredient in pirate films). It's not a comedy but there's a lot of fun to be had. There's treachery afoot, and Laughton is perfectly cast as the 'unscrupulous blackheart' at the centre of it all, playing the larger-than-life captain with a twinkling measure of gallows humour and a cherubic mock-innocence. Above all, Captain Kidd is shameless entertainment, and shouldn't really be taken any other way.



DIRECTOR: Rowland V. Lee

WRITER/SOURCE: Robert N. Lee and Norman Reilly Raine.

KEY ACTORS: Charles Laughton, Randolph Scott, Barbara Britton, John Carradine, Henry Daniell



RELATED

- Charles Laughton reprised his role in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd.

- The real life Captain Kidd (and his treasure) inspired the novels Treasure Island, Plum Island and The Devil and Tom Walker.

- A lesser film, Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl, was made in 1954.

- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End echoes the level of double-dealing and trickery that characterised Captain Kidd.

- Other famous classic pirate films: The Black Swan, The Sea Hawk, The Crimson Pirate and Captain Blood.



AWARDS

Academy Awards - nominated Best Music.