Friday, December 20, 2013

John Paul Jones (1959)

Warner Bros.
Directed by John Farrow
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Warner Archive Collection)

Patriotic biopic of early American naval hero John Paul Jones chronicling his rise from poverty to leader of the American Revolution. It's an uneven drama that works best when on the high seas, featuring dramatic battle scenes, but tends to get lost on land in the political and personal melodrama. Robert Stack's flat performance and an unnecessary and indulgent cameo by Bette Davis as the Empress of Russia don't help either. Nonetheless, entertaining in a grand spectacle sort of way, as to be expected from producer Samuel Bronston who was about to embark on a string of some of Hollywood's biggest spectacles of all in the early 1960s.

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