Charles Farrell, an enterprising young lad, becomes a member of the crew of the Esther, a merchant ship bound to Naples. On the way, he makes friends with bos'n Wallace Beery, George Bancroft, a gunner who deserted from the Constitution, cook George Godfrey, and pretty passenger Esther Ralston. However, the ship is captured by Barbary Pirates, Miss Ralston is scheduled to be taken, along wih the ship, as a gift to an emir, and the men thrown into a slave quarry. Our Hero and his three pals escape and make their way to the Consiution, which finally shows up nearly an hour into the movie, where Johnny Walker as Stephen Decatur is already engaging in heroics. This goes on and it is in the final twenty minutes that we actually get the Battle of Tripoli and everyone is rescued.
It's a bit leisurely in getting down to what everyone is waiting for, but when it finally happens, it's a well conducted reenactment, with director James Cruze doing a lot of beautiful model work, thanks to Farciot Edouart and his special effects team. Bancroft is a lot of fun in a terrible wig, and Beery gets a big shove from the villains he had been playing towards the big-hearted lout he would portray at MGM. It's a rousing Yankee Doodle of a movie, and the script offers a lot of nice touches, thanks to a writing team that included Laurence Stallings, Rupert Hughes, and Dorothy Arzner. Some sequences were shot and presented in Magnascope, but the copy I looked at lacked the effect.
It's a bit leisurely in getting down to what everyone is waiting for, but when it finally happens, it's a well conducted reenactment, with director James Cruze doing a lot of beautiful model work, thanks to Farciot Edouart and his special effects team. Bancroft is a lot of fun in a terrible wig, and Beery gets a big shove from the villains he had been playing towards the big-hearted lout he would portray at MGM. It's a rousing Yankee Doodle of a movie, and the script offers a lot of nice touches, thanks to a writing team that included Laurence Stallings, Rupert Hughes, and Dorothy Arzner. Some sequences were shot and presented in Magnascope, but the copy I looked at lacked the effect.