Anne of the Indies (1951)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

The greatest movie ever!

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

I saw this movie when I was very young living in Houston, Texas. I really enjoyed this movie, and I wrote to Jean Peters in Hollywood, and I told her how much I enjoyed seeing her in this movie. She sent me an autographed photo. This movie was directed by Jacques Tourneur, and besides Jean Peters in the starring role. It also stars Louis Jourdan, Debra Paget, and Herbert Marshall. It was released in 1951 in color and is 81 minutes long. Jean Peters was married to Howard Hughes. She also starred in "Viva Zapata" with Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn, who won an Oscar for playing the role Zapata's brother (Marlon Brando starred as Zapata) (1952). And she also starred in "Captain from Castile" (1947) with Tyron Power. Since then I've been trying to find a place where it is available, but so far I have not been successful. Does anybody have any suggestions about where I can find and purchase this movie? It this comment contains spoilers, I am unaware of it.

This movie was much better than I expected. ++++ Jean Peters actually does a passable job as a pirate and does decent work in her sword fights. (To the extent she may have a double doing the action, it's hard to tell...but Peters herself obviously is doing a good deal of it, and doing it well.) ++++ With a good and serious script, this could have been an excellent film. But it's basically cheesy. Still entertaining however. ++++ Not up to a regular Jacques Tournier film, but definitely above a regular Jean Peters film. Color is typical of this '50s time period, ie. too garish and not realistic. The actors for Blackbeard and her first mate and the drunken doctor were good. Louis Jordan was a bit weak. I don't think Debra Paget was right either. But certainly Jean Peters and Debra Paget were probably the two best looking female stars in the '50s.

I'm not quite sure what Jean Peters did in her life to warrant getting cast in Anne of the Indies. I thought being married to Howard Hughes she would have been able to get her pick of parts. Unless of course her eccentric husband was doing the casting.As Anne Provedence, protégé of Blackbeard, and captain of her own crew of pirates she's one nasty lady to cross. But along comes Louis Jourdan who's spying for the British who are hoping to get rid of this she devil of the seas. Jourdan as Captain LaRochelle is not expecting a woman, but he switches gears and romances her. He's certainly a better looking male specimen than any of her crew. What's a girl to do.But Jourdan also has a wife, a real girly girl Debra Paget. That really tangles things up.You'd like to say that Anne of the Indies was some kind of a harbinger of films about liberated women, but it ain't. It's a muddled mess with the cast going through the motions and looking like they'd rather be just about anywhere else.Who knows, maybe this thing was something from the brain of Howard Hughes as he was entering his reclusive stage.

Directed by Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, Out of the Past, Night of the Demon) and written by Phillip Dunne (How Green was My Valley) Anne of the Indies is a quite interesting adventure pirate movie. Its main character of captain Anne Providence is based on a real woman-pirate Anne Boney who actually lived and sailed through 18th century's Atlantic. The film begins with the sea battle where Anne's (Jean Peters) pirate ship attacks a trade ship that was on its way to Europe from the South America. As a result a treasure of great value is captured along with a handsome French officer Pierre La Rochelle (Louis Jourdan), who is taken prisoner. Anne ends up falling in love with him and apparently her feelings are reciprocated but it's only till she sets him free when she discovers that he has a beautiful young wife Molly (Debra Paget) with whom he pretty much in love with. Anne begins planning revenge on both of them but in an unexpected twist of fate ends up making a great sacrifice in order to save them instead. The pirate movie cliché figure of `Black Beard' also makes his appearance here, this time played by Thomas Gomez.Though Anne of the Indies probably appears to be no more nor less than a revisiting of pirate movie clichés, it still has its classical moments in beautiful visuals and sea battle sequences filmed in Technicolor as well as in some aspects of the story and most of all in personal touches in directing of all of it by Jacques Tourneur. 7/10