American film directed by Anthony Quinn
The Buccaneer is a 1958 pirate-war film made by Paramount Pictures starring Yul Brynner as Jean Lafitte, Charles Boyer and Claire Bloom. Charlton Heston played a supporting role as Andrew Jackson, the second time that Heston played Jackson, having portrayed him earlier in the 1953 film The President's Lady. The film was shot in Technicolor and VistaVision, the story takes place during the War of 1812, telling a heavily fictionalized version of how the privateer Lafitte helped in the Battle of New Orleans and how he had to choose between fighting for America or for the side most likely to win, the United Kingdom.
The movie's supporting cast featured Inger Stevens, Henry Hull, E. G. Marshall, Lorne Greene, Ted de Corsia, Ed Hinton and Douglass Dumbrille. Anthony Quinn directed the film.[12]
Possibly as a film tie-in, Johnny Horton had a big success at the time with his version of the song The Battle of New Orleans.[citation needed]
Production
The Buccaneer's budget was $6 million. $1.2 million was given for the promotion of the picture. Quinn was given five stars, fifty-five featured actors, 100 bit actors, 12,000 extras, 60,000 props, $100,000 worth of antique furniture, Spanish moss, and cypress trees.
Historical inaccuracy
Claiborne's only surviving daughter, Sophronie (or Sophronia) Louise Claiborne, was only two years old at the time of the battle. The romance with Lafitte is complete fiction.[citation needed]
1938 film
The film is a remake of the 1938 film of the same name which starred Fredric March and Akim Tamiroff (Boyer played Tamiroff's role in the remake). The 1938 version was produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, but he was seriously ill by the time the 1958 version was made, so he was only the executive producer of that version, leaving his then son-in-law, Anthony Quinn, to direct. It was the only film that Quinn ever directed. Henry Wilcoxon, DeMille's longtime friend, who made frequent appearances in his films, was the actual producer, and DeMille did received screen credit as "supervised by Cecil B. Demille", though students of his films would probably find that his touch is obvious throughout the film. Nevertheless, DeMille was unhappy with the film and tried unsuccessfully to improve it; critical response was generally unfavorable, despite some impressive battle scenes.
Reception
Critical response
Staff writers for Variety wrote in their review: "Continuity-wise, Buccaneer is a scrambled affair in the early reels. Open to question, also, are the story angles in the screenplay which derives from a previous Buccaneer scenario put out by DeMille in 1938 and, in turn, from an adaptation of the original book, Lafitte the Pirate, by Lyle Saxon."[12] In his book, Success in the Cinema Money Making Movies, John Howard Reid, states most reviews of the film left out the director's name, Quinn, like Time and Newsweek. The Time review states: "What (Henry) Wilcoxon and Quinn have produced is just a half-deflated imitation of the old man at his overblown best." The Newsweek review stated without criticizing anyone: "two hours of the most pretentious nonsense to lay claim to a moviegoer's spending money."
Release
The Buccaneer was released in New York City theatres during Christmas week of 1958. The film was released on DVD ON February 28, 2012, by Olive Films.[15]
