The Film Detective Restores Director Lloyd Corrigan's Technicolor Presentation Of The Dancing Pirate For Release As Blu-ray And DVD Editions On Feb. 22

The Film Detective’s latest 4K film restoration (from surviving 35mm film elements) will be arriving home on Feb. 22 as both DVD and Blu-ray product offerings.

This latest effort is none other than director Lloyd Corrigan’s 1936 Technicolor musical, The Dancing Pirate, starring Charles Collins, a former vaudeville dancer, stage actor and later as a talent agent, he only starred in two films, The Dancing Pirate and in 1940, Swing Hostess.  

The Dancing Pirate was the first three-strip Technicolor musical and over the years only “black and white” versions have made their way to DVD.   This is the real deal, fully restored in all of its Technicolor glory … toss your old copies, you WILL want this one!!

Here Collins plays Jonathan Pride, a dance instructor in Boston in 1820 … he is a whiz at teaching the waltz, it is the latest thing from Europe and it is quite the thing!!  It’s 1820, whalers and pirates still roam the seven seas, Maine and Missouri become states (making St. Louis the gateway to the west) and Mexico’s independence from Spain is still over a year away (not until August of 1821). 

It is on these streets of Boston that Pride is shanghaied and forced to become a crew member of a pirate ship.   During his long voyage from Boston around South America and up the west coast to the Spanish colony of New Spain (aka: California), Pride is transformed from a dancing dandy to a pirate, a dancing pirate, complete with early 19^th Century pirate garb.

At anchorage off the coastal town of Las Palomas, the pirate ship is spotted and the locals are alerted to the danger.   The mayor, Don Emilio Perena (played by Frank Morgan — nominated for Best Actor in 1934 for his performance in The Affairs of Cellini and again in 1940 for Best Supporting actor in Tortilla Flat, is certainly best-remembered as “The Wizard” in the 1939 classic, The Wizard of Oz) and his lovely daughter, Serafina (Steffi Duna — Anthony Adverse, Way Down South, Waterloo Bridge … she married Dennis O’Keefe in 1940, the same year as Waterloo Bridge, and retired from the screen) arrive to see what all the fuss is about.

Meanwhile, Pride uses the opportunity to escape his captors and arrives in Las Palomas only to be met by a volley of gun fire (the villagers think he is a pirate), but his dancing skills save the day as he is able to “magically” dodge the bullets.   Desperate, he finds a hiding place, which in a “small world sort of way” turns out to be Serafina’s bedroom … frying pan into the fire!!

A pirate in the bedroom of the mayor’s daughter in 1820 California … that was a hanging offense.   So, there’s poor Jonathan Pride standing there on the gallows, a rope around his neck, when Serafina stops everything and says that she wants to learn the Waltz and that this pirate is really a dancing pirate and he can teach her and the other lovely young ladies of Las Palomas as well (included in the cast of young ladies are Rita Hayworth, Thelma Catherine Ryan (aka: Pat Nixon) and Marjorie Reynolds).   Saved!

A local band magically appears, Pride does some fancy moves, with a rope around his neck, and everyone agrees that he’s no ordinary pirate, he’s a dancing pirate.   The dancing lessons can now begin, Serafina will learn the waltz and Pride will not hang.  

But, no sooner does the first lesson begin when he suddenly finds himself going from the frying pan to the fire and then back to the frying pan.  He does the forbidden thing in 1820 Las Palomas, he puts his hand around the waist of an unmarried woman, Serafina, the mayor’s daughter!!   Back to jail!!

Soon Serafina learns that this “affront” is part of the dance, so all is forgiven, but things get complicated when Capt. Don Balthazar (Victor Varconi — as Pontius Pilot in the 1927 version of The King of Kings, as Painted Horse in The Plainsman and as Rudolph Hess in The Hitler Gang, quite the gamut of characters in his long film career) and his men arrive from Monterey.   He wants Serafina for his bride.

Can a dancing pirate defeat the dashing captain in a duel for the hand of Serafina, armed only with his aunt’s umbrella (which he has kept with him all this time)?   To find that out, pick up a DVD or Blu-ray edition of The Dancing Pirate on Feb. 22 and discover the answer (hint: it involves some clever dance moves).

Bonus goodies include commentary from author Jennifer Churchill (“Movies are Magic”) and two newly-prepared featurettes — “Ambushed by Mediocrity: Remembering the Dancing Pirate” and “Glorious Pioneers: The Birth of Technicolor.”