The Boy and the Pirates

Last updated
The Boy and the Pirates
The Boy and the Pirates poster.jpg
Theatrical poster
Directed by Bert I. Gordon
Based onBert I. Gordon
Lillie Hayward
Jerry Sackheim (the stories)
Produced byBert I. Gordon
Starring Charles Herbert
Susan Gordon
Murvyn Vye
Paul Guilfoyle
Joe Turkel
Cinematography Ernest Haller
Edited by Jerome Thoms
Music by Albert Glasser
Distributed by United Artists
Release date
  • April 13, 1960 (1960-04-13)
Running time
82 minutes
LanguageEnglish

The Boy and the Pirates is a 1960 American adventure film directed by Bert I. Gordon, known as a master of giant monster films. [1] It stars a popular child star Charles Herbert and Gordon's daughter Susan. The storyline concerns a boy and girl trapped on Blackbeard's pirate ship.

Contents

Plot

A boy named Jimmy Warren who lives along the Massachusetts coast is upset with the unfairness of modern life when his father scolds him about his school grades. He plays on a wrecked ship along the shore with a girl named Kathy. He picks up an odd brass jar and wishes to be back in the olden days on a pirate ship. When Jimmy utters "Where am I?", the magic jar pops open and a strange little man appears. He introduces himself as Abu the Genie and states that he has granted Jimmy his wish to be on a real pirate ship. Jimmy scoffs at the notion, but Abu insists that they are at that very moment passengers on Queen Anne's Revenge , the pirate ship of the notorious Blackbeard.

Abu refuses to grant Jimmy's wish to go home, and informs him that he must return the brass bottle to the exact spot where he found it within three days, or he will be forced to take the genie's place inside of it. The genie then tries to ensure that Jimmy will fail to do so. Chased by Blackbeard, at the last second Jimmy returns the bottle to the place he found it, and he finds himself returned to the present day. He remembers his adventure, but Kathy is puzzled about his story.

Cast

Production

Charles Herbert recalled: "Timothy Carey on this movie probably scared me more than The Colossus of New York! But he was a nice man, and he always tried to make you feel, 'I’m not really crazy,' and you would say, 'Okay.' And then he would walk away and you’d go, 'He’s CRAZY!' He was a scary man. He’d look at me and I would run behind my mother. And I had to catch up to her, because she was tryin’ to find somebody else to hide behind!" [2]

Reception

In a brief contemporary review in The New York Times , critic Howard Thompson called The Boy and the Pirates "... a standard, rather cloying little item ... it's all pretty sticky, albeit clean. The kids deserve better." [3]

Home media

The Walt Disney Company's 2006 theatrical release of Johnny Depp's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest revived interest in pirate films. To take advantage of this, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released a Midnite Movies double feature DVD set with the rarely seen The Boy and the Pirates and the more recent Crystalstone (1987) on June 27, 2006.

Comic book adaption

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blackbeard</span> English pirate (1680–1718)

Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne's War before he settled on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop that he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet, but Hornigold retired from piracy toward the end of 1717, taking two vessels with him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Sparrow</span> Main character of the Pirates of the Caribbean film series

Captain Jack Sparrow is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Pirates of the Caribbean film series and franchise. An early iteration of Sparrow was created by screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, but the final version of the character was created by actor Johnny Depp, who also portrayed him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hector Barbossa</span> Fictional character in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series

Captain Hector Barbossa is a fictional character of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, appearing in all five films in the series. Starting out as a villainous undead skeleton in The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Barbossa dies at the end of the film. However, the character is revealed to have been resurrected and brought back from the dead by Tia Dalma by the end of Dead Man's Chest, and has since appeared in anti-heroic roles. Captain Hector Barbossa was one of the nine Pirate Lords in At World's End (2007), a privateer in service to King George II and the British Navy while also seeking revenge against Blackbeard in On Stranger Tides (2011), as well as a rich rogue and influential leader of a prosperous pirate empire and fleet in Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017). Throughout the series, Barbossa has been conceptualized as a "dark trickster" and the evil counterpart of Captain Jack Sparrow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stede Bonnet</span> Barbadian pirate (1688–1718)

Stede Bonnet was a Barbadian-born pirate and military officer, known as the Gentleman Pirate for the reason that he was a moderately wealthy landowner before turning to a life of crime. Bonnet was born into a wealthy English family on the island of Barbados, and inherited the family estate after his father's death in 1694. Despite his lack of sailing experience, Bonnet decided he should turn to piracy in the spring of 1717. He bought a sailing vessel, the Revenge, and travelled with his paid crew along the Eastern Seaboard of what is now the United States, capturing other vessels and burning other Barbadian ships.

<i>Queen Annes Revenge</i> Pirate Blackbeards ship

Queen Anne's Revenge was an early-18th-century ship, most famously used as a flagship by Edward Teach, better known by his nickname Blackbeard. The date and place of the ship's construction are uncertain, and there is no record of its actions prior to 1710 when it was operating as a French privateer under the name La Concorde. Surviving features of the ship's construction strongly suggest it was built by French shipwrights, based on differences in fastening patterns in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. After several years of service by French sailors, she was captured by Blackbeard in 1717. Blackbeard used the ship for less than a year, but captured numerous prizes using her as his flagship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bert I. Gordon</span> American filmmaker (1922–2023)

Bert Ira Gordon was an American filmmaker and visual effects artist. He is best known for writing and directing science fiction and horror B-movies such as King Dinosaur (1955), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Earth vs. the Spider (1958), Village of the Giants (1965), and Empire of the Ants (1977).

<i>Black Pearl</i> Fictional ship in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series

The Black Pearl is a fictional ship in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. In the screenplay, the ship is easily recognized by her distinctive black hull and sails. Captained by Captain Jack Sparrow, the Black Pearl is said to be "nigh uncatchable". In the first three films, she either overtakes or flees all other ships, including both the Interceptor, which is regarded as the fastest ship in the Caribbean, and the Flying Dutchman, which is faster than the wind. Her speed is derived from several factors such as the large number of sails she carries and being partly supernatural. As stated in Dead Man's Chest and At World's End, the Black Pearl is "the only ship that can outrun the Dutchman" and this is evidenced in the maelstrom battle between the two ships in the movies.

<i>Blackbeards Ghost</i> 1968 film by Robert Stevenson

Blackbeard's Ghost is a 1968 American fantasy comedy film directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Peter Ustinov, Dean Jones, and Suzanne Pleshette. It was produced by Walt Disney Productions and Bill Walsh. It is based upon the 1965 novel of the same name by Ben Stahl and was shot at the Walt Disney Studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Turkel</span> American actor (1927–2022)

Joseph Turkel was an American character actor who starred in film and television during the Golden Age Era in the 1950s and 1960s. He is known for his roles in Stanley Kubrick's films The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), and The Shining (1980), and as Dr. Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner (1982). He also had roles in three of Bert I. Gordon's films.

<i>On Stranger Tides</i> 1987 historical fantasy novel by Tim Powers

On Stranger Tides is a 1987 historical fantasy supernatural novel by American writer Tim Powers. It was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and placed second in the annual Locus poll for best fantasy novel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Herbert</span> American child actor (1948–2015)

Charles Herbert Saperstein, known as Charles Herbert, was an American child actor of the 1950s and 1960s. Before reaching his teens, Herbert was renowned by a generation of moviegoers for an on-screen broody, mature style and wit that enabled him to go one-on-one with some of the biggest names in the industry, and his appearances in a handful of films in the sci-fi/horror genre garnered him an immortality there. In six years, he appeared in 20 Hollywood features.

<i>War of the Colossal Beast</i> 1958 film by Bert I. Gordon

War of the Colossal Beast is a 1958 black-and-white science fiction film, written, produced, and directed by Bert I. Gordon for his Carmel Productions, and starring Dean Parkin, Sally Fraser, and Roger Pace. It is the sequel to Gordon's earlier The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) and was distributed theatrically by American International Pictures as the bottom half of a double feature with Attack of the Puppet People. The film's storyline picks up where The Amazing Colossal Man left off, although it was not marketed as a sequel and features a different cast. The film's brief death-scene finale was filmed in color.

<i>Anne of the Indies</i> 1951 film by Jacques Tourneur

Anne of the Indies is a 1951 Technicolor adventure film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by George Jessel.

<i>The Brass Bottle</i> (1964 film) 1964 American film by Harry Keller

The Brass Bottle is a 1964 American fantasy-comedy film about a modern man who accidentally acquires the friendship of a long-out-of-circulation genie. The film stars Tony Randall, Burl Ives and Barbara Eden.

Israel Hands, also known as Basilica Hands, was an 18th-century pirate best known for being second in command to Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. His name serves as the basis for the name of the villainous sidekick in Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 novel Treasure Island.

Genies or djinns are supernatural creatures from pre-Islamic and Islamic mythology. They are associated with shapeshifting, possession and madness. In later Western popular representation, they became associated with wish-granting and often live in magic lamps or bottles. They appear in One Thousand and One Nights and its adaptations, among other stories. The wish-granting djinns from One Thousand and One Nights, however, are the divs of Persian origin, not the Arabian djinns.

<i>Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides</i> 2011 fantasy film directed by Rob Marshall

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is a 2011 American fantasy swashbuckler film directed by Rob Marshall. It is the first film in the series not to be directed by Gore Verbinski. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, the film is suggested by the 1987 novel On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers as a standalone sequel to At World's End (2007) and the fourth installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. The film stars Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, and Kevin R. McNally, who reprise their roles from the previous films, alongside Penélope Cruz, Ian McShane, Sam Claflin and Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey. The story follows the eccentric pirate Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) forced into a shaky alliance with Angelica (Cruz), a mysterious woman from his past, as they embark on a quest for the Fountain of Youth. Jack is forced aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge, contends with the infamous pirate Blackbeard (McShane), and enters an uneasy alliance with Jack's rival Hector Barbossa (Rush).

Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was a notorious English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of the American colonies during the early 18th century. He captained the Queen Anne's Revenge, a 200-ton frigate originally named the Concord, and died in a fierce battle with troops from Virginia on November 22, 1718, at Ocracoke Island.

<i>Pan</i> (2015 film) 2015 American film directed by Joe Wright

Pan is a 2015 American fantasy film directed by Joe Wright and written by Jason Fuchs. The film is a prequel to the 1904 play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, released in novel form in 1911 as Peter and Wendy, by Scottish author J. M. Barrie, and focuses on the origin story for Peter Pan and Captain Hook. It stars Hugh Jackman as a fictionalized version of Blackbeard, Garrett Hedlund as Hook, Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily, and Levi Miller as Peter Pan.

References

  1. Bartlett, Rhett (2023-03-09). "Bert I. Gordon, Director of Cult (and Cheap) Sci-Fi Classics, Dies at 100". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  2. "Charles Herbert Interview / So You Wanna Be a Kid Actor...? Archived 2006-04-17 at the Wayback Machine ", Classic Images, 2006
  3. Thompson, Howard (1960-11-24). "Screen: On Japanese Idea". The New York Times . p. 48.
  4. "Dell Four Color #1117". Grand Comics Database.
  5. Dell Four Color #1117 at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original )