Producer: George A. Hirliman. Executive producer: Edward L. Alperson. Copyright 21 December 1936 by Grand National Films, Inc. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release through Regal Film Distributors. (The Film Daily published a review of this film on 17 April 1936). 66 minutes. SYNOPSIS: In order to obtain credit, a personable but down-on-his-luck schooner master spreads a false rumor that he has uncovered a vast pirate treasure. Setting: an island in the South Seas.NOTES: A companion piece to We're in the Legion Now. Both films were formerly distributed to TV by Screen Gems in washed-out black-and-white versions. It's good that we now have them in color, even if both prints are a bit worn and splicy. Still, there are so many jump cuts in the original negatives, one or two dozen more is not going to make much difference.COMMENT: Curiosity value (piqued by ingenious cast credit titles) but little else is on offer here in this scrappily directed South Seas travelogue-musical-Boy's Own Paper pirate adventure. Perhaps I'm being a bit hard on the film. The brothel madame (convincingly played by Margaret Irving) would never gain a place in Boy's Own. Nor would the sadistic Samson (played with a little too much enthusiasm by Roy D'Arcy). And the lovely but faithless Movita who enjoys the spectacle of men fighting over her, is yet another no-no.I also found pouring-on-the-charm-and-casting-off-the-shirt George Houston a bit hard to take as the singing hero, whilst somewhat plain and scratchy-voiced Marian Nixon failed to engender my interest in the heroine. The most capable and interesting performance came, oddly enough, from screenwriter Crane Wilbur who handed himself a sizable role as a sympathetic doctor. I also liked Harold Howard's crafty interpretation of a money-pinching yet money-mad trader. And it's good to say that Vince Barnett's portrayal of the hero's comic sidekick is a lot more restrained in Calamity than in his over-the-top Legion.Reinhardt's direction rated as one or two pegs more competent than Crane Wilbur's handling of We're in the Legion Now (which is faint praise indeed), though he does manage to capture enough sleazy island scenery to put us off traveling to Polynesia for life.

. . . is about as lame as it gets, starting with the back tattoo of "Captain Bill," which could have been done by JOHNNY after HE GOT HIS GUN. The CAPTAIN CALAMITY plot meanders as star George Houston doffs his shirt, breaks into song, or both--with little if any excuse. Kindly peripheral characters drop like flies, but Captain Bill never misses a beat. If Australia's future had depended upon the kind of alleged "chemistry" existing between the shirtless Mr. Bill and his buttoned-up co-star Marian Nixon back in the early 1900s, it's likely that the kangaroos and koalas would have Down Under to themselves today. When you consider that America was producing slick movies such as PUBLIC ENEMY and HEROES FOR SALE about the time that CAPTAIN CALAMITY was released, one puzzles over why this misbegotten mess didn't nip Aussie filmmaking in the bud. If it had, the world would have been spared countless subsequent examples of aimless mayhem, such as PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, HEAVENLY CREATURES, GALLIPOLI, and both NED KELLYs (not to mention all the "dingo-ate-my-baby" flicks).

This film was made by Grand National Films, a company with a brief existence from 1936 to 1939. They were trying to become a major player by signing up James Cagney, but his second film for the firm, Something To Sing About cost a fortune for the company and laid an egg at the box office, effectively bankrupting the fledgling firm. Captain Calamity sounds like it would be a comedy film, but it is not. There are some attractive players here, like George Houston, who goes through much of the film with no shirt on, and Movita, a player whose character suffers a surprising fate. The color is a version of Cinecolor which favors blue and red and really looks quite lovely on the unrestored but very watchable print I viewed. Most prints have the first section of credits missing, and cuts in for the shots of the cast poking their heads through a life preserver, with their names printed on the preserver. A good example of early, good-looking color from a company other than Technicolor.

Captain Calamity is an early pirate film about Captain Bill Jones, a sailor who accepts a gold coin for transporting a man. When he pays off with the gold coin, speculation spreads that he has a treasure. Soon after, a band of pirates are after him and the gold. The plot was really strange and convoluted, so the details were lost to me. This is partly because because the technical mistakes were so distracting that it was hard to care about anything. When watching the film, I quickly realized that it was a complete mess. I was foolish and had vowed to watch through the whole thing, resulting in one of my worst movie experiences.The acting is downright horrible. Captain Bill Jones could have been quite a charismatic character, but he ends up being a complete clown. The other acting was just as terrible, and the characters themselves were bland and forgettable. I could not bring myself to care about any single character. The dialog was also terrible.The camera-work is some of the sloppiest I have ever seen. There is no sense of orientation because nearly all the scenes focus directly on the characters or their faces, so the surrounding environment is a complete mystery. This leads to immense continuity confusion. It does not help that the editing is also bad; the scene changes seem very jerky and unnatural.Captain Calamity fails on every level that I judge movies on. I had no fun at all; I was hoping that the (potentially) exciting seafaring theme might overshadow the problems, but it was nowhere near the case. I do not even want to think about watching the movie again, ever. It looks like Captain Calamity is largely forgotten or ignored by today's viewers, which I think is a worthy fate.