Sadly the greatest success of Cecil B De Mille’s career ‘The Ten Commandments’ 1956 was followed by this film – a disastrous flop and a month after the film’s release he died aged 77.

I have read the he had intended to make this as a Musical Version which really surprised me, but in the end that did not happen.

This film had a very large budget at 5 million US Dollars and had VistaVision, Technicolor and a large cast of actors and extras and yet it still missed the mark. Who can say why.

I remember at the time speculation that seeing Yul Brynner with hair didn’t help but that can’t have been the only factor

The film starred Yul Brynner, Charlton Heston, Charles Boyer and Claire Bloom

Yul Brynner makes as dashing a Jean Lafitte as Fredric March did in the 1938 film. Charlton Heston repeats his Andrew Jackson role from The President’s Lady which he made earlier in the Fifties.

The best role in the film was Charles Boyer as Dominic You, Lafitte’s cynical second in command. A former artillery officer in Napoleon’s army, he left there and took up piracy out of disillusionment with how the French Revolution turned out.

Charles Boyer has some good and wise lines which he delivers well

Cecil B DeMille’s film is pretty much the same as the 1938 version.

In the film the two female leads are played by Claire Bloom as a fiery type who seems to cross between Love and Hate for Lafitte, whereas Inger Stevens is really attractive as his true love – she is also the daughter of the governor

This film had one additional thing going for it.

Singer Johnny Horton had a big hit record with ‘The Battle of New Orleans’ at the same time the film came out. In England we had another great version from Lonnie Donegan which I preferred

The film was directed by Anthony Quinn who was the Son-in-Law of Cecil B De Mille at the time. Generally he did a good job but the film’s dismal showing at the Box Office probably contributed to the fact that he never directed another film. I have read that the final cut was done by Cecil B DeMille and he had hacked it about quite a bit – maybe that also was a contributory factor.

Anthony Quinn poses for an Advertisement on the Film Set