if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Blistering performances.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Anthony Quinn stars in A High Wind In Jamaica where he and first mate James Coburn preside over an unruly crew of pirates. This is a beautifully photographed film which I had a lot of problems with. It's a bit of a homage to Treasure Island with Captain Quinn bonding with several children who have been sent to the United Kingdom by their parents Nigel Davenport and Isabella Dean from Jamaica where the parents have become colonizers. It's for the kid's educations but they get quite the education when during a raid on their ship they wind up on the pirate ship.In many ways A High Wind In Jamaica is Disney like, but there are too many grim scenes for this to ever be Disney type material. And in the end those kids, especially the oldest girl do not prove to be Jim Hawkins like.I see the film got a lot of positive reviews, but I'm afraid I can't be one of them.

Alexander Mackendrick directed this pirate film, based on a novel by Richard Hughes, that deals with the children of an English couple living in Jamaica, who fear that their children are growing up wild, and losing touch with their culture, so send them back to England on a ship that is ironically boarded by pirates(led by Anthony Quinn & James Coburn) with whom the children stow away with. Though annoyed by their passengers, an unusual bond is formed, which is later tested when the pirates are captured by authorities, and put on trial for their lives. Nicely produced, with good actors, but story feels contrived and predictable, with the two pirates gathering no sympathy for their eventual plight(making them "heroic" figures is most dubious!)

I had watched this eons ago on Italian TV but had long forgotten it - the film does come across as somewhat unmemorable at the end of the day, but this offbeat pirate-adventure-with-child-interest has a beguiling charm all its own. That said, the film's very low-key nature might not win it much approval among action-film fans...Curiously enough, half the film is actually spoken in Spanish (without the benefit of English subtitles!) - and, while it tends to wander because of this, also gives the proceedings a welcome air of full-blooded vividness! Anthony Quinn is his usual larger-than-life self, but his befuddled interaction with the kids endears him to viewers even more here. James Coburn is very amusing as Quinn's second-in-command, who can't speak a word of Spanish and is often at a loss as to what is going on around him (though I would have liked some form of an explanation as to his incongruous presence there). Dennis Price has a notable cameo towards the very end as a solicitor leeringly prying into the children's 'experience' with the pirates, while "guest star" Gert Frobe only appears in one crucial scene as a wounded Dutch captain (but who eventually has a huge bearing on the plot resolution); the film also features Nigel Davenport as the children's father and Lila Kedrova as a 'tavern-keeper'.The opening hurricane sequence - which gives the film (and the novel it is based on) its title - is extremely well done, though the climactic courtroom sequence and its outcome (the willful execution of the pirates) is rather too rushed to be as effective as it needs to be. The antics of the children, of English and Spanish origins, are fun to watch - but Deborah Baxter leaves the best impression, as she is the one to bond most with Quinn. Larry Adler's lovely score subtly accentuates Douglas Slocombe's colorful widescreen imagery.Alexander Mackendrick was an American-born/Scotland-bred director who made his name at Britain's famed Ealing Studios and went on to have a very brief but often brilliant career; this was actually his penultimate work. Incidentally, the two films of his I've yet to watch - MANDY (1952) and SAMMY GOING SOUTH (1963) - also feature children as their protagonists.

I saw a somewhat washed-out and flickery full-frame version of this movie a few years back on TV. It was great then. I tried to get a Video or DVD for some while.As someone has already mentioned, this is really a great movie, not like the sweetened Disney flicks of the period.When I saw, that it was on program on one of our smaller tv stations I was looking forward to finaly get a chance to tape it.And then came the very very very pleasant surprise that they broadcasted a restored widescreen version. That really made for a great Christmas surprise.