Popular reviews

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  Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★★

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  Film #21 of the "Scavenger Hunt" Challenge!
  Task #22 : A film that takes place at sea!
  letterboxd.com/naughty/list/scavenger-hunt/

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  A motley crew of pirates get more than they bargained for when they loot a ship only to discover later that the children were accidentally trapped in the pirate ships hold!

  The children turn the pirates ship topsy turvy with their mischievous antics! The ships superstitious crew wants the children off the ship but the Captain grows fond of the fearless tomboyish Emily!

  The three strong leads (Anthony Quinn, James Coburn and Deborah Baxter) are what make this film special! However it is Deborah Baxter (Emily) the young girl whom weaseled her way into the heart of a hardened, grizzled…

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  Review by Headhunter666 ★★★½ 2

  LB Community Seereise

  
  Oberpiratenkapitän Anthony Quinn und Oberpiratenmaat James Coburn staunen nicht schlecht als sie ein paar Kiddies im Schiffsinneren entdecken. Diese haben sich nämlich nach dem Kapern des Schiffs das sie sicher nach England bringen sollte auf deren Piratenboot geschmuggelt.

  Nun, die Eltern der Kids dachten das es auf Jamaika nicht ganz so geil ist und entscheiden ihre Sprösslinge wieder nach England zu bugsieren, wo sie ein richtige Schule besuchen sollten.
  Auf Jamaika ist es zwar schön sonnig und warm, aber diese Stürme und diese seltsamen Bräuche dieser seltsamen Einheimischen sind dann doch zuviel des Guten.

  Die Rasselbande also, macht es sich nach dem Überfall auf dem Piratenschiff bequem und hält die Besatzung samt Kapitän ordentlich auf Trap.
  Auf…

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  Review by maneleeo ★★★½

  You know those films that are made for kids, but somehow, adults can also find something they like in them? So, I was ranting a bit about it, in the beginning, on how unrealistic it was and how it lacked the violence of real pirates. But, I was finding it so charming, like I was a kid again. It's the kind of film that brings you to a state where you see things from the perspective of a child.

  And Anthony Quinn, now he steals the show, absolutely. Even with James Coburn in a very charismatic part, it's Quinn, whose performance touches our hearts, that brings life to the film.

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  Review by Jerry ★★★★½ 8

  Best pirate movie I've ever seen, and a shockingly intelligent exploration of Old World v. New World and childhood.

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  Review by trolleyfreak ★★★½ 2

  After making his mark with a run of Ealing comedies (Whisky Galore!, The Man In The White Suit, The Maggie) and cementing his reputation with the enduring masterpiece that is Sweet Smell Of Success, it's difficult to fathom the reasons behind the downturn in the fortunes of Alexander Mackendrick immediately afterwards, but that's what happened!

  He managed to get himself fired from both The Devil's Disciple and The Guns Of Navarone and wouldn't work again in the cinema until he was handed the directorial reins on Sammy Going South by his ex-Ealing boss Michael Balcon who was executive producer on the film, a film which the director saw as an unsentimental scrutiny of the innocent savageries of childhood and paved…

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  Review by Lawrence Garcia ★★★★

  "A ship is the finest nursery in the world." The underlying subject of Richard Hughes' novel is also that of Johan Huizinga's contemporaneous study Homo Ludens: the primacy of play in civilization and society. The unique thrill of this adaptation is that it dispenses with any attempt to recreate the children's subjectivity, instead rendering their "innocent voyage" according to the particular rules and logic of their sundry amusements, for which both the seafaring adventure genre and Mackendrick's vigorous, propulsive direction—near-constant orchestrations of thrumming activity; dynamic foreground-background compositions that even Richard Fleischer would envy—prove ideal. Thus, the children's games and the crew's undertakings are equally worthy of serious attention: a scene of parental abandonment plays out again as a doll ceremony;…

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  Review by JJ Arias ★★★★

  He ate a whole spoonful of pepper and he didn’t cry. 

  Chavez was a true hero

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  Review by John Venable ★★★★½

  Starts off as a grandly staged storybook adventure that soon turns into a study of a hard world for little things second only to Night of the Hunter, where the adults are well-meaning but irredeemably violent, the hard knocks are emotional as well as physical, and the burgeoning awareness that forces well beyond your childish understanding determine your (and others') place in the world is persistent and discomfiting. The last two scenes are absolute heartbreakers.

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  Review by Kevin Jones ★★★★

  The 1960s, 21/100

  Alexander Mackendrick’s ability to bring characters to life stands as the greatest feature of his work. From the bumbling thieves of The Ladykillers to the grimy men in The Sweet Smell of Success, his films are driven by those characters as much as they are by the often witty, biting scripts he directed. A HIgh Wind in Jamaica is no exception with Anthony Quinn’s Captain Chavez standing tall over this picture alongside James Coburn’s Zac, Chavez’s right hand man. Accompanying them are innocent but rich child characters who, after the pirates - led by Chavez - hijack the ship a group of children were on, wind up sailing the high seas alongside these rough-and-tumble men.

  Opening with…

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  Review by Erica ★★★

  Pirate James Coburn is one of the hottest things I’ve seen all year.

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  Review by Carlos Valladares ★★★★★

  Joan Didion, 1967: "The Center was not holding."

  Alexander Mackendrick, 1965: "The Empire was not holding."

  Now that's a goddamn picture. Children coldly dispatched without funerals or goodbyes, sexual abuse rampant and expected by girls at every moment...when a tear in the fabric of society appears, a courthouse of white wigs and clucks and bodices are naturally quick to instantly blame pirates outside of London law—and not the powers that keep those wigs powdered, the powers that stoke those girls' fears and dehumanize a child. Mackendrick employs CinemaScope to its highest possible formal and thematic capacity (he's up there with Suzuki and Minnelli). He frames a fragile world in rot, chaos crowded beautifully. It makes one helluva double-feature with his…

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  Review by Krautsalat ★★★★

  Surly pirates Anthony Quinn and James Coburn kidnap a bunch of rich children. Tight, unpredictable script and excellent acting throughout. So basically it's the good version of Hook.