The Boy and the Pirates

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The Boy and the Pirates

DVD Cover for The Boy and the Pirates
Directed by Bert I. Gordon
Produced by Bert I. Gordon
Written by Bert I. Gordon
Lillie Hayward
Jerry Sackheim
Starring Charles Herbert
Susan Gordon
Murvyn Vye
Paul Guilfoyle
Joe Turkel
Music by Albert Glasser
Cinematography Ernest Haller
Editing by Jerome Thoms
Distributed by United Artists (Theatrical)
Sony Home Video (DVD)
Release date(s) 1960
Running time 82 min.
Language English
IMDb profile
Charles Herbert and Susan Gordon star in the 1960 Bert I. Gordon film The Boy and the Pirates.
Charles Herbert and Susan Gordon star in the 1960 Bert I. Gordon film The Boy and the Pirates.

The Boy and the Pirates is a 1960 film from Bert I. Gordon (Mr. B.I.G.), the master of giant monster films. It stars a very popular child star of the day in 12-year-old Charles Herbert and Gordon's own daughter, Susan. The story line, that of a little boy and girl trapped on the ship of one Blackbeard the Pirate, ranges from comical at times to downright gruesome. There is a good deal of killing during the course of the film. The cook forces Jimmy at one point to take a fish and "gut and clean it, and save his entrails". There is another moment when Morgan the pirate tries to get Jimmy to reveal his coveted information by threatening to scald his mouth with a red-hot poker.

Nonetheless, it has been described as "an engaging and innovative fantasy so perfect in its service to and embellishment of genre formula, it comes across as both completely familiar, yet breathtakingly original." [1]

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A boy, Jimmy Warren, living along the coast in Massachusetts is upset with the unfairness of "modern" life (1960) when his father scolds him about his school grades. He plays on a wrecked ship along the shore with Kathy. He picks up an odd jar, and wishes he were 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 pops out. He introduces himself as Abu the Genie, and states that he has granted Jimmy his fondest 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 "The Queen's Revenge", the ship of notorious Blackbeard the Pirate.

[edit] Featured cast

Actor Role
Charles Herbert Jimmy Warren
Susan Gordon Katrina Van Keif / Kathy
Murvyn Vye Blackbeard
Paul Guilfoyle Snipe
Joe Turkel (as Joseph) Abu the Genie
Archie Duncan Scoggins
Than Wyenn Hunter
Albert Cavens Dutch Captain
Mickey Finn Peake
Morgan Jones Mr. Warren
Timothy Carey Pirate Morgan

[edit] DVD

Walt Disney Company's theatrical release of Johnny Depp's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, on July 7, 2006, spiked interest in previous "pirate" films. To that end Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, released a Midnite Movies double DVD set with the rarely seen The Boy and the Pirates, and the more recent Crystalstone (1988), on June 27, 2006.

[edit] Triva

  • "Timothy Carey on this movie, probably scared me more than The Colossus of New York!", says Charles Herbert. "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]

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links