jarrodmcdonald-1 Recently I watched CARIBBEAN, a 1952 Paramount production starring John Payne. It's on Amazon Prime. Not sure what I expected, but it was much better than a Technicolor swashbuckler/melodrama almost has any right to be. The performances were very good. John Payne is a handsome, dependable lead across a variety of genres but we usually don't think of him in the way that we think of Brando or other much-lauded actors. Yet he does some of his best work here, giving a very honest, sensitive and touching portrayal of a prisoner caught between two madmen waging war on an unnamed Caribbean island. What makes the story even more interesting is that Payne's character falls for a young woman who is the daughter of both men. Yes, that's what I said. Watch the film and you'll see what I mean.The female lead is played by Arlene Dahl, and she gives what I think is her best performance in any film. She's beautiful, feisty and vulnerable. At the end, she is caught in a scene of domestic violence and the story ends without her knowing the truth about her two fathers. Most actresses would have a tough time with this sort of story, but she excels.Back to the two dads for a minute. One of them is played by Cedric Hardwicke. He did a variety of roles in his long stage and screen career. So he comes to CARIBBEAN with vast amounts of experience. He easily could chew the scenery with the type of part he's playing here, but he keeps it all very dignified. He takes what is basically a cold-blooded killer and makes us sympathize with him. I have never liked a villain so much in a movie as I did with him here. That's a testament to Hardwicke's gifts as a dramatic interpreter of this material. The other paternal figure in the story is portrayed by robust Francis L. Sullivan. He could have turned his character into a cartoonish nincompoop, but he infuses just the right amount of edginess and civility. Even when he is ordering two prisoners to fight each other to the death with knives before a crowd of spectators, as if it were an everyday event (maybe it was for him). The film has quite a number of things going for it. The direction is precise throughout, the Technicolor visuals are well photographed and there is a great subplot involving the slaves on the island that seems very much ahead of its time.

bkoganbing It's sad that the plot from Caribbean seems to be taken from a romance novel. Sad because at the time and place of this film, just a few years before the civil rights revolution, a film about a slave revolt would have been considered a classic had it not been attached to such a hokey plot.John Payne plays a hunter who sees pirate Cedric Hardwicke bury a treasure and gets caught doing it. Normally that would mean Payne's quick demise, but Hardwicke has a use for him. The ship's surgeon gives Payne a facial scar needed to pass as the nephew of his mortal enemy Francis L. Sullivan who was once Hardwicke's partner and who cheated him out of his share and even had him sold into Spanish slavery and took Hardwicke's daughter to raise as his own and she grew up to be Arlene Dahl.Now pirate Hardwicke who looks like he makes a good living at the pirate trade is still out to get his ex-partner and Payne is to be his inside man.Sullivan looks like he's having a great old time hamming it up as the villain without any appreciable redeeming qualities. Still it's not enough to save the film. Neither are some interesting portrayals by Clarence Muse and Woody Strode as leaders of the slave revolt.Caribbean is a great romance novel view of the 18th century with Payne and Dahl decked out like romance novel leads. Costumes and scenery are great and even greater in technicolor. But what could have been a great film on slavery in the British West Indies gets the budget treatment with a hokey plot courtesy of Paramount's B picture unit.

dinky-4 The first person to review "Caribbean" on this site correctly points out that it isn't really a pirate movie. Instead, it starts out as a potentially-intriguing drama about an impersonator. Cedric Hardwicke -- as part of a revenge plot -- grooms John Payne to assume the identity of Francis L. Sullivan's nephew, even going so far as to have a scar burned into Payne's skin which matches one on the nephew's face.It's typical of this movie's haphazard nature, however, that its "impersonator" angle is so carelessly handled. There is no scene of Payne being trained to play his role, for example, and once he assumes it, there is no scene of him being tested by any unexpected circumstances. Indeed, the fact that Payne is impersonating someone else soon becomes an inconsequential element of the plot, and the scene when he finally admits he's not Sullivan's nephew is casually tossed away.The original reviewer is also correct in pointing out that Payne, as an actor, is not skilled at bringing out the dual nature of an impersonator. He's too "straightforward." (If "Caribbean" were to be made today, Ewan MacGregor, with his sly humor and restless intelligence, would be a more appropriate choice.) Payne is also at least ten years too old for this part, and thus it's amusing to hear him referred to as "the boy" or addressed as "m'lad."By the early 1950s, John Payne had moved away from the clean-cut young man who romanced the likes of Betty Garble, Alice Faye, and Sonja Henie in Fox musicals. Pushing 40, he began to toughen up his image by appearing in crime dramas, westerns, and pirate movies. "Caribbean" is an obvious attempt to increase his "macho" rating during this transitional period. In it, he's involved in two fistfights and a knifefight, sports a beard in one scene, and is given several opportunities to appear bare-chested. Unlike most of his films of the 1940s, his chest has no longer been shaved and powdered to a boyish smoothness but now sprouts a healthy growth of black hair across the pecs. In his best "beefcake" scene, a sweaty Payne is shown stripped to the waist while he's forced to "walk" his way up a constantly revolving waterwheel. (Even in middle-age, Payne has the kind of fine physique which might appeal to both male and female viewers.)The sadomasochism of this waterwheel scene never reaches the point of actual torture but the dialog in "Caribbean" often threatens Payne with gruesome violence. Cedric Hardwicke says to him: "I'll scatter your brains all over the deck." Willard Parker says: "If your name weren't MacAllister, I'd have you spreadeagled and left for the vultures." Arlene Dahl says: "You're lucky he didn't flay you alive!" And Francis L. Sullivan says: "Another word and I'll have your traitorous tongue torn out by the roots." Curiously, despite all these threats to turn Payne's body into a temple of pain, the movie's sole flogging has a black female slave as its victim. The original reviewer perceptively mentions two faults in the movie's script: absolutely no information is given about Payne's background, (did he leave a family behind when he was abducted?), and his romance with Arlene Dahl is hurried and unconvincing. Dahl simply isn't "lovable" because her character is so artificial and her part is so woefully underwritten.On the other hand, Cedric Hardwicke and Francis L. Sullivan make good villains and one wishes they'd had more scenes together. However, the pledge which the dying Hardwicke extracts from Payne doesn't make for an appropriate climax and thus the movie's ending seems both flat and abrupt. The battle which precedes this ending also seems a bit tiresome since the audience isn't inclined to root for either side."Caribbean" does have snatches of good dialog, however. When the ship's surgeon, for example, says: "If my hand misses, I'd chop it off myself" -- Hardwicke replies: "That might be difficult to do without a head." And when Dahl asks Payne: "Will the gentlemen like me?" -- Payne replies: "Yes. Until they get to know you."Incidentally, "Caribbean" is based on a novel by Massachusetts-born Ellery Clark who won two gold medals at the 1896 Olympics in Athens.

Brian Ellis This movie also leaves a lot of loose ends. It's hard to believe that Arlene Dahl would fall so quickly for John Payne. Also, Payne's former life is quickly forgotten. This movie must have been made for kids because it was preposterous to this adult. Payne is a serviceable actor but he doesn't have the charisma for this kind of role. He is rather solemn-faced and this role demands a little more levity. Forget this and look for an Errol Flynn movie instead.