Technically this is a very interesting film. As entertainment, it's pretty hard to sit through, even though it's only ten minutes.
Technical matters first: it's two-strip Technicolor, which was at the cutting edge when this one came out. Add in sound, with which MGM was still not comfortable -- a faded print in which good frames seem to alternate with bad ones and not the greatest sound in the world -- this one was recently restored off a disk that the Vitaphone Project found -- and you have something that is of interest mainly for its place in film history.
Add in Benny Rubin as a Jewish pirate, a song about dancing with a pegleg and it becomes bizarrely bad. It is redeemed a trifle by some good modern (for the period) ballet to classical music. However, don't bother.
Technical matters first: it's two-strip Technicolor, which was at the cutting edge when this one came out. Add in sound, with which MGM was still not comfortable -- a faded print in which good frames seem to alternate with bad ones and not the greatest sound in the world -- this one was recently restored off a disk that the Vitaphone Project found -- and you have something that is of interest mainly for its place in film history.
Add in Benny Rubin as a Jewish pirate, a song about dancing with a pegleg and it becomes bizarrely bad. It is redeemed a trifle by some good modern (for the period) ballet to classical music. However, don't bother.
