Captain Lightfoot

Excellent and colorful swashbuckler filmed entirly in Ireland. Beautiful scenery filmed in County Wicklow just outside Dublin. Hudson (with an Ok Irish brogue) is the fictitious Captain Lightfoot who alongside his mentor Captain Thunderbolt (Jeff Morrow) give the occuping British forces in Ireland plenty of headaches. Exciting action and chases throughout highlighted by a terrific prison break from a castle.Besides Hudson, the lovely Barbara Rush, Jeff Morrow and Britisher Finley Currie the rest of the entire cast is fleshed out with the cream of Irish players who add greatly to it.The DVD is superb! In glowing color and a sharp clean 2.35 widescreen. This was one of Universal's first Cinemascope efforts and they went all out to make it a good one.

A dashing rollicking story of Captain Lightfoot, (played by the devilishly handsome Rock Hudson) and his mentor Jeff Morrow, (Captain Thunderbolt.) The film is set in Regency times, and beautifully filmed in technicolour in Ireland. This fast paced actioner has lovely Barbara Rush, as Aga, the spirited heroine who teases and torments our hero. With humour, and bravado our young patriot resorts to highway robbery, while raising the spirit of the people during the Irish revolution, to oppose the English domination, and manages to outwit the law of the land. A must see for all, who may have missed it on it's release.

DEFINITELY one for your "so-bad-it's-good" list.Anyone who thinks Rock Hudson was an actor should be forced to watch this piece of un-cured ham. Affecting a really bad Irish brogue, (which he lapses in and out of throughout the movie), his early scenes in this are little short of panto mugging and stock expressions of wonderment.Still he looks nice, ....and tries to play the wild Irish firebrand rural hick come to town, where he civilizes up rather quickly for a country boy it must be said .This movie also suffers something of an identity crisis.Not enough sword play or daring-do to be a swash-buckler; not enough adventure to be an epic; not enough sex to be a bodice-ripper; not enough major events to be a costume-drama; and not enough quality to be all that memorable."PHOTOGRAPHED" (not "shot" or "filmed") entirely in Ireland as the credits announce, the landscape looks pretty enough but there are a lot of very obvious studio interiors that are nowhere near the Emerald Isle.Performances are all pretty much in pantomime style, with some of the worst delivered lines you are ever likely to hear.Rock plays a would-be highwayman, ....and a pretty inept one at that; robbing for "the cause" which is to free Ireland from British rule.He's far too hot-headed to be of any use, ...and after another botched robbery has to hightail it out of the countryside to Dublin where he instantly becomes second-in-command to the infamous, and highly successful Capt. Thunderbolt. (A sort of Scarlet Pimpernel character!)Rock is given the name Capt. Lightfoot, .....and knowing of Mr Hudson's sexual proclivities in real life one wonders if the pun is not fully intentional.There are gypsies, totally unbelievable "ladies who aren't ladies" (ahem!), and lavish gambling casinos that look more Louis Kaboom than Louis Quatorze where the primary action seems to be mass courtly dancing rather than any gaming.There's a duel...of course, which Rock wins in a most unlikely way by means of a cigar!The only sex is one passionate kiss and an old fashioned spanking which Rock deals out to the young Scarlett O'Hara lookalike when she gets to uppity.Of course you just KNOW they are destinied for marriage after that!Despite much shooting here, amazingly no one dies.Even the bloke who everyone thinks is a traitor but is really a patriot (of course), manages to survive being shot and apparent drowning in a river.There are also some inexplicable costume changes that would not be possible. For instance Rock is at one stage arrested during a failed rescue attempt while wearing a monk's outfit and is taken straight to court where he appears wearing his clothing he left behind before he even set out on the mission quite some distance away. I cannot imagine his captors driving him home to change.The costumes are quite lavish at times, and the movie looks beautiful enough, but it never rises above laugh-level due to the ineptitude of most of the cast.It's just so obvious that everybody is trying so desperately to be somebody else.Rock wants to be Errol Flynn, the leading lady wants to be Vivienne Leigh, Capt. Thunderbolt wants to be James Mason...you get the idea.This is certainly NOT a film to be taken seriously.It is a shame that the director could not have made a firmer decision about just what sort of a movie this was going to be and gone along those lines.As it stands it's caught in the middle of a couple of genres and flounders about being neither one thing or the other.Watch it for the scenery, the costumes,... and to remark upon, and probably laugh at the lack of acting ability of just about everybody. I unexpectedly quite enjoyed this, but for all the wrong reasons.

Something different, Loved the costumes and as usual the big boy was remarkable.

I was trying to contact seller but can't seem to do it through my order. . I bought the DVD in November but just got to view it now. The DVD is defective...and all you see is a mosaic pattern. I would like it returned for a new one but there is no seller info.

El Bore-o

Colorful, entertaining adventure set during the Irish Revolution in the early 19th century.It looks great in Technicolor and Cinemascope. It was directed by Douglas Sirk, who made several films starring Rock Hudson. Sirk is known as a director who always gave the audience something nice to look at. This film is no exception. It was even shot on location in Ireland.I have been wanting to see Captain Lightfoot for years now, especially since it was unavailable for so long. This unavailability, of course, usually creates a curiosity and a demand among audiences. I am happy to admit that it met my expectations.Now for the complaints. This DVD has absolutely no features, no chapter listing, not even any subtitles! With the characters speaking in an Irish brogue, I was unable to understand some of the dialogue. In addition, the picture quality was not the best. The blue sky looked grainy and washed out in places. Some of the character's faces and costumes were not sharp, either.I can see a better quality DVD, or probably Blu-ray, coming out in a few years time.