Captain Calamity (1936) User Reviews

"Well there she is - Sofio - jumpin' off place for the scum of the South Seas."

[classicsoncall · 5/10 · 5 August 2006]

With a name like "Captain Calamity", I was surprised coming out of the film at how entertaining it actually was. George Houston portrays the title character, Captain Bill Jones, who gets a lot of mileage out of a single gold doubloon. Without ever actually lying about discovering a sunken treasure, Jones' tall tale takes on a life of it's own after the seed has been planted with a nefarious saloon keeper named Joblin (Harold Howard). After that, the treasure grows with each telling of the tale, until one imagines the Schooner Marigold sinking under it's weight.

To be sure, the film is not an award winner, but it is a fun adventure. George Houston, who I'd seen before in some of his Lone Rider Westerns, is much more spirited here, as he performs a host of singing numbers while grinning broadly. You never quite believe he's going to turn over his leading lady Marian Nixon to a former beau after all the commotion over the non existent gold.

The best lines of the film are delivered by Captain Jones as he re-establishes his acquaintance with Joblin henchman Black Pierre. During introductions, Jones remarks - "You know of all the guys I don't like, you're the one I like most". Later in the film Jones reaffirms his mutual trust and distrust of Pierre at the same time - "I'd be quicker to believe you than any other liar I know..."

Besides Marian Nixon's character Madge Lewis, the film is complemented by Margaret Irving as a conniving Madame Gruen in league with the film's bad guys, and a pretty island girl named Annana. I got a kick out of her screen credit, reminiscent of one for a character in the 1970's TV series 'Hawaii Five-O". In that one you had Zulu as 'Kono', and here we have Movita as 'Annana'. My question in each case - Why couldn't they have just used their own names?

As mentioned earlier, George Houston went on to do eleven films for Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) in the period 1940-1942 as 'The Lone Rider'. Though I haven't seen any of those in which he sings, he does belt out the Lone Rider theme song over that series' opening credits. Houston's voice was by some estimates just a bit too formal and booming for lowly 'B' Westerns, but in 'Calamity', he does sound pretty good; that salt sea air does wonders.

As time goes by, little known titles like "Captain Calamity" seem to be finding a wider audience with assorted compilations. I found it as part of a ten film, three DVD 'Pirates' set recently released by St. Clair Vision, which has also put together similar collections in other genres. It's a terrific way to spend a few hours at a very reasonable price (under ten dollars), and get to see a lot of actors before they became big name Hollywood stars.

It's from Grand National...need I say more?!

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 13 December 2023]

In the 1930s and 40s, there were a bunch of ultra-low budget filmmaking outfits which were collectively referred to as 'Poverty Row'...mostly because of the cheapness of the films. Of all of them, perhaps the most consistently poor was the output of Grand National...though like all the Poverty Row studios, they occasionally came out with a winner. Unfortunately, "Captain Calamity" isn't a particularly good film...though for Grand National, it's actually pretty good.

Bill (also known as 'Captain Calamity' because of his propensity to fight) has a boat and he agrees to take an Australian back home. The passenger pays him with his good luck piece...a gold doubloon. When Bill returns home himself, the story about this one lone doubloon soon morphs into stories about Bill returning with cases full of gold! As a result, all the scum of the earth living there want to beat the supposed secret about the treasure from him or his crew...but again, there is no treasure! So what's next? Well, you can assume from his nickname there will be a lot of fighting!

The main problem with this movie is that instead of character development, there's a lot of action and fighting. This means the characters have about as much depth as movie serial characters...which means, not much. The acting is also only okay at best...and having Vince Barnett in the film didn't help. How Barnett got to appear in so many movies is perplexing to me. He was a mostly one-note comic relief sort of guy.

So is the film terrible? No. The location shooting on Catalina Island (on the California coast) isn't bad and although the story isn't great, it's an acceptable time-passer....not that this is a glowing endorsement.

Nice color adventure, but mind-boggling script leaves mixed emotions,.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 23 July 2015]

I truly dislike the word inappropriate. It has been overused, abused and slaughtered to death in our language of today. However, when it is used "appropriately", as it is here, it has an important factor in expressing a feeling. "Captain Calamity" had the potential to be a nice little color adventure from a growing poverty row studio, but there is definitely in this case an inappropriate use of humor throughout the film which comes at the strangest times. Jokes are thrown in as some of the characters are killed or lay there dying or injured, leaving a sort of unnecessary sardonic feeling to the events occurring on screen. It all surrounds a South Seas search for treasure and the fight between captain George Houston and various pirates who come in and out of the action. Then, add some rather insipid songs, and you have what might have been a nice little operetta on stage in the early 1920's, but is just an eye roller 15 years later.

For one thing, certain characters seem to be splitting their loyalties down the middle, on Houston's side one minute then betraying him or plotting against him in the next with no apparent motive. Marian Nixon is his love interest, a pretty young lady with an alcoholic foster father (Crane Wilbur), while "Mutiny on the Bounty's" Movita is the second female lead in a storyline with Houston's loyal right-hand man Roy D'Arcy, a comic relief type who jokes around at the most awkward times. Margaret Irving adds some spark as the patroness of a South Seas dive, while Vince Barnett is the epitome of sleaziness as the greedy Burp. While you can't expect Technicolor like quality from a poverty row film, the over-use of blue makes it seem rather tinted than colored. Certain major studios used this form of color for their short subjects. But in the end it is the fault of the script which makes this less than memorable even though it is still worth a look to see the progress color films were making.

Not-Bad South Seas Programmer With Good Color

[earlytalkie · 25 August 2013]

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.

Avoid at all costs

[vovazhd · 1/10 · 25 January 2008]

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.

Truth in titling

[dbborroughs · 2/10 · 10 December 2009]

Really bad story of a Captain who is paid with a gold coin for transporting a passenger to an island. When people find out that he has a gold coin they assume he has a treasure and well…

This film is a mess. As bad as it is, its also a watchable film in a so bad its good sort of way but its still a mess. Blame it almost all of the problems on the lead. George Houston as the Captain plays it with a smirk and a wink and completely destroys any credibility the film might have had. Trust me, as mediocre as the rest of the film Houston sinks the film single handedly because he's so jovial and joking and ever smiling that we can take nothing seriously. How did this guy ever have a career as anything other than a laughing idiot?

For bad film lovers only.

Plenty of sleaze!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 24 April 2018]

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.

This beefcake pirate musical . . .

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 12 February 2016]

. . . 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).

Technicolor's Competing Hirlicolor Produces Comparative Results in Seafaring Film

[springfieldrental · 6/10 · 31 July 2023]

Technicolor wasn't the only color format in Hollywood in the mid-1930s. Cheaper, less vibrant systems were being used, mostly in lower budgeted 'Poverty Row' movies. April 1936 "Captain Calamity," a Grand National Film production, jumped on the pirate theme filming with the Hirlicolor process. Named after its inventor, George Hirliman, the system was part of the Cinecolor's early subtractive two color movie process developed in 1932. Animated cartoon studios, barred by Technicolor's vibrant three-strip process because of its exclusive contract with Walt Disney, were looking to splash some color in their cartoons besides the older Technicolor technology. Fleischer Studios, Ub Iwerks, and Warner Brothers in its Looney Tunes series all used Cinecolor with some reasonable results despite its limitations to only red and green dyes. As the years progressed, Cinecolor was able to achieve a look some some say nearly equaled Technicolor's red, green and blue separate film strips in the camera.