Blackbeards Ghost

Cast: Peter Ustinov, Dean Jones, Suzanne Pleshette, Elsa Lancaster, Joby Baker and Richard Deacon.

Director: Robert Stevenson

Release Date: 1968

Genre: Fantasy/Comedy

Running Time: 1hr 46 minutes

Rating: U

Synopsis:

Famous Pirate Blackbeard (Peter Ustinov), has been cursed by his last wife, who was a notorious witch. The curse that was placed, was that Blackbeard would never die, the only way to break the curse is to do a good act, however is he able to do anything good?

Edward Teach better known as Blackbeard, was a notorious English Pirate, on November 28th, Edward's two ships attacked a French merchant vessel, just off the coast of Saint Vincent. Both ships fired at broadside killing several of it's crew, forcing the captain to surrender.

This is a classic Disney movie! Director Robert Stevenson is also know for directing hit Disney movies "Mary Poppins" and "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" if you really enjoyed these two, chances are your gonna love this Disney classic! Starring Peter Ustinov (Robin Hood), Dean Jones (The Love Bug) and Suzanne Pleshette (The Birds), so we've got some pretty familiar faces here, the crazy thing too is that they've all worked with Walt Disney at some point during their career.

The story is great, it's really easy to understand, with moments of great humour and a bit of action. There are some pretty interesting characters in this movie and the odd bad guy too, making the relationship between Blackbeard and Steve Walker (Dean Jones) pretty entertaining, they have great chemistry and work really well together on screen. Suzanne Preshette has a nice role Jo Anne Baker, I'm never too sure if she's meant to be Steve's love interest or not? Now this movie is based on a novel too, so it could be different again?

The acting is really good, Peter Ustinov as Blackbeard is absolutely brilliant, he brings great characterization and humour to his character. Despite his character supposedly being quite selfish, his heart is in the right place. Steve Walker and Blackbeard have great charisma on screen, Dean Jones is absolutely brilliant. His character too is very funny. Some moments of this film are absolutely hilarious and will have you on the edge of your seat laughing! The bad guys are great and also bring a lot of humour to this movie! I do think the woman who play Blackbeards descendants the daughters of the buccaneers is a bit over the top in terms of acting, but then they are related to Blackbeard so what would you expect?

The set design is really cool, the pub where Steve stays, is made to look like an old Pirate ship, including the gorgeous interior design, the set design team were definitely onto something when they made this movie. It's one of those sets I would love to have a look around, there's a lot going on, lots of detail, I really appreciate filmmakers who take the time to make movie sets look authentic, I also think the actors perform better when something seems more real to them too. I do think CGI is used a bit too much these days, it ruins it, you've got to remember this is 1968, so they did the best they could. I really like it.

The special effects aren't amazing, but like I mentioned before this was 1968, they could only do so much and considering what they had access too, you've got to give them credit. This is a really fun family film, it works, you shouldn't really expect anything else either to be honest. Yes it's Disney, but old school Disney, half the fun is that it doesn't always look brilliant, you can use your imagination and humour to make the movie fun.

All in all this is a really entertaining movie, full of humour, fun and action, it's something that the whole family can sit down and watch, there honestly isn't anything in that I would say is inappropriate, there's not use of bad language and definitely no violence. This is just a great fun family film, Disney lovers in particular I would recommend.

4/5 stars