This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Such a frustrating disappointment

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The Dancing Pirate which was released by RKO in 1936 was one of the last films done with an original score by Rodgers&Hart. They would be moving back to Broadway and had a string of hit musicals only interrupted by Larry Hart's death in 1943.As this was an RKO film watching it now it was fairly obvious that this film was created with Fred Astaire in mind for the lead. Had Astaire done it The Dancing Pirate might be better remembered. Certainly the two songs done by Dick and Larry aren't among the most memorable. In fact the best number in the film is a dance by lead Charles Collins to Yankee Doodle Dandy that had Astaire written all over it. In fact the main weakness of the film is Collins. A good dancer, Collins had a screen presence that was colorless, odorless, and tasteless. He plays a Boston dancing teacher who gets shanghaied by pirates and escapes the first chance he can when they put in to California for provisions.Still ruled by Spain, the local Alcalde is Frank Morgan at his decisiveless best. Morgan on loan from MGM is the best thing about The Dancing Pirate.Collins is sad to say guilty by association and the men want to hang him, but the women want to learn to dance so he's in legal limbo of sorts. He also has competition for the hand of Morgan's daughter Steffi Duna in the person of Captain Victor Varconi from Monterey at the head of a platoon of dragoons ostensibly there to protect the village from pirates. But Varconi has his own plans, Snidely Whiplash type plans.The Dancing Pirate won an Oscar nomination for the now defunct category of dance direction. I long for the day when musicals of all kinds were being churned out and a category like dance direction was warranted. Speaking of dancing Rita Hayworth is in this film as part of her family troupe of Spanish dancers, The Dancing Cansinos.The Dancing Pirate is an amusing enough film, but it really needed Fred Astaire to put it over.

After watching The Dancing Pirate, I tried to decide what target audience was intended. It wasn't particularly humorous, adventurous, or full of great music; it just sort of unrolled over time.The star, the Dancing Pirate himself, was so gaunt and skeletal that it was hard to believe he could move as quickly as he did without fainting from starvation. One expects a dancer to be fit, with some musculature, but this poor guy desperately needed to eat something, and soon.There weren't really any sympathetic characters, either, although there were some dis likable ones.It's an odd movie, bringing together tap dancing and flamenco, inducing peaceful Indians to do violence, the star dancing with a noose around his neck, and more...it's like nothing else.

Have fun looking out for Rita Hayworth in "The dancing Pirate", but don't hold your breath.By 1936, Margarita Cansino was being groomed for stardom by Fox studios. According to one biography (featured in Gene Ringgold's "The Films of Rita Hayworth" of the old Citadel press "Films of..." series), her father then regrouped the remaining Dancing Cansinos under the name "The Royal Cansino Dancers" and appeared in "The Dancing Pirate" for an affiliate of RKO pictures.The year before "Pirate" was released, Rita had already had speaking parts in Fox films like the Jane Withers vehicle "Paddy O'Day", in which Rita was the female adult lead. It seem unlikely she would then be loaned to another studio to be hidden among the Royal Dancing Cansinos.I would say all this at least warrants an unconfirmed status on Hayworth's credit for this film. But, if you ask me, she is NOT in the film at all.

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.