VCI Entertainment announced this past week that director Edward Dmytryk’s 1952 War of 1812 swashbuckler, Mutiny, has undergone a new 4K film restoration from the film’s 35mm negative (filmed in glorious Technicolor) and will be ready for release as both DVD and Blu-ray product offerings on Dec. 15.
This independent film production from brother Frank and Maurice King (aka: King Brothers Productions — Dillinger, Gun Crazy, Drums in the Deep South, among others) was something of a gamble in that the film’s director, Edward Dmytryk, who had been nominated for Best Director in 1947 for Crossfire, had run afoul of House Committee on Un-American Activities.
He served a year in prison and had been out of
Hollywood for three years … this was his first film back.
The King brothers shopped the completed film around for distribution (filmed off the coast of California and on the sound stages of the Samuel Goldwyn Studio in Culver City), with at least RKO in the mix, but ended up back with United Artists, the company that had distributed a number of their previous films.
With that said, the United States has just declared war on Great Britain and with that the War of 1812 is underway. The Concorde, under command of Captain James Marshall (Mark Stevens — The Dark Corner, The Street With No Name, Torpedo Alley) has orders to sail to France (which is currently neutral) and pick up a shipment of gold. The British have set up a blockade and it will be a dicey proposition sailing there and back … and at all costs, the mission is to be kept secret.
Second in command is a former British naval officer, Captain Ben Waldridge (Patric Knowles — as Will Scarlet in Robin Hood, plus such films as How Green was My Valley, Of Human Bondage, From Earth to the Moon, etc.), who was drummed out of the navy for theft. The two “captains” tend to butt heads over how a proper ship is run, but that’s the least of their problems.
Waldridge wasn’t particularly keen on voyage, but he
had the incentive of bringing his former lover, Leslie (play by none other than
Angela Lansbury, who by this time in her career had Oscar nominations for Gaslight and The
Picture of Dorian Gray), back with him if
things go as planned. She is currently
living in Paris.
There’s your set-up, a risky mission to sail to France and back, pick up a fortune in gold and reunite lovers. What could possibly go wrong? Vicious sea battles with the Royal Navy, double-crossing crew members and a woman who also wants in on the action and is willing to kill to get her share of the loot … those are just a few of the things that can go wrong!!
Dec. 15, DVD or Blu-ray, Mutiny … stand by for plenty of action!!
No comments:
Post a Comment