That was an excellent one.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

People have noted that the "The Dancing Pirate" was original and unique. That is true, but it is set firmly in a Gilbert and Sullivan "Pirates of Penzance" absurd world. In this world, a genteel dancing instructor can be mistaken for a bloodthirsty pirate.There are lots of scenes that seem to foreshadow scenes in other movies. Its important to remember that this 1936 movie preceded these other films. The scene of Dancing Instructor Johnathan Pride (Charles Collins) entering a small Californian town and being mistaken for an invading pirate army reminds one of "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming" (Jewison, 1966). The scene of male versus female Spanish dancers at the end reminds one of the "America" scene in West Side Story (Wise, 1961). Robert Collins' athletic dancing reminds one of Gene Kelley in "The Pirate" (Minnelli, 1948), although Collins' skinny frame also reminds one of Ray Bulger's scarecrow in "Wizard of Oz" (Minnelli, 1939). Speaking of Wizard of Oz" Frank Morgan, the wizard of "Wizard of Oz" gives a performance here that is very close to the wizard, as he plays another bumbling authority figure, the mayor of a Spanish village. Another technique first used here and copied in "Wizard of Oz" is that the movie begins in black and White and only switches to color when we arrive in the magical land of California. I found one other connection to the "Wizard of Oz." The star of this film, Charles Collins, had a voice-over in "The Wiz" (Lumet, 1978).I saw a very bad dark and muddy color print of this movie on Amazon Prime streaming video. The N.Y. Times reviewer in 1936 raved about the Technicolor of the original. I hope someday someone goes to the trouble of restoring the film to its original color. This print made the film difficult to watch. However, the great choreography, humorous story, and wonderful performances by leads Charles Collins, Frank Morgan, and Steffi Duna won me over.If you like Gilbert and Sullivan, I think you'll find "the Dancing Pirate" witty and charming. The songs are by Rodgers and Hart, while not their best work ("Pal Joey"), they still are very good.

A mélange of action comedy romance and musical doesn't really work since its trying to be too many things all at once. The plot has a dance teacher getting shanghaied into becoming a pirate and sailing from the east coast of America to the west where the pirates come up and try to take over a town in Spanish California. Our hero of course defects, but is thrown in prison because everyone assumes he's one of the bad guys. Straightening things out he has to over come the town bad guy and head of the local militia who is engaged to the daughter of the "mayor" of the town. She doesn't love the villain, but our hero.Can you tell I wasn't much interested? The music is fair, the dancing adequate and the story way too busy. It feels at times like they are trying to do a musical version of Zorro but with out the mask. I will admit that it didn't help that I saw this Technicolor film in black and white so the garish costume designs looked worse and the sets looked very much like bad cheap sets. That said the cast is at best fair with Charles Collins (in one of his very few screen roles) as the dancing romantic lead very bland and second billed Frank (the Wizard of Oz) Morgan proving that he is better in support then in a lead where his abilities are strained a bit too much.In its way its not a bad film, rather it's the sort of thing that was just sort of misses. I'm guessing the film was skimped on since the Technicolor film stock ate up most of the budget.Not the worst thing to come down the pike, but not something I need ever see again.

I would have liked the movie even more, I'm sure, if I'd seen the color version. Unfortunately, the only version I could find was the black-and-white, which I purchased out of curiosity from a bin of one dollar DVDs at Wal-Mart. Anyhow, "The Dancing Pirate" is certainly no masterpiece, but it's hard to dislike this movie. It's harmless, goofy, sort-of-weird entertainment (just about what you'd expect from the title), and the main character is a likable guy. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't actually contain any dancing pirates (the main character, "a dancing master," is mistaken for a pirate), but the dancing it does contain ain't bad. If you're the type of person who'd consider buying a movie called "The Dancing Pirate" from a bin of one dollar DVDs at Wal-Mart, you'll like this movie, as did I.

I saw this movie when I was five years old and never heard of it again. All I could remember was the fellow dancing with a noose around his neck. Looked for it for years, then saw it, just in the past year, in a bin as a Rita Hayworth movie. Thanks to the generic title I recognized it right away. There won't be many comments on this one, as it's virtually unknown, but I've looked at it twice and it brings back a memory of a movie I loved so much as a child, though nothing came back to me except the mentioned dancing scene. It's offbeat, in terrific color and I think enjoyable . Did anybody ever hear of the dancer who played the title role again?