Product Description

Award-winning actor Peter Ustinov stars in this hilarious fantasy as the ghost of the legendary pirate Blackbeard. The once blackhearted scoundrel materializes in a small New England town, cursed to wander in limbo until he performs a good deed. He gets his chance when he decides to help a local college track team--that hasn't a ghost of a chance of winning! Blackbeard finds himself full of team spirit, and dispensing his own brand of invisible coaching--in this warmhearted comedy that will have you laughing from his first fade-in to his final fade-out!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9217 in DVD
• Brand: BUENA VISTA HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2002-06-04
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 107 minutes

Amazon.com
In the moody prologue, amid a raging storm that evokes Hollywood golden-age high-seas swashbucklers, a foreboding scroll recounts the legend of one of the bloodiest pirates in the history of the Caribbean. Leave it to Disney to turn him into a fun-loving old prankster with a whimsical side. Peter Ustinov mugs shamelessly as the bombastic but harmless apparition who renounces his wicked ways to become the mischievous school spirit of the local college, much to the annoyance of straight-arrow track coach Dean Jones. Made in the heyday of Disney’s live-action family comedies, Blackbeard's Ghost is all haphazard but high-energy slapstick and squeaky-clean romance (courtesy of contemporary schoolmarm Suzanne Pleshette) performed with more gumption than grace, but there’s a nostalgic innocence to the whole overplayed affair. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Great movie, bad DVD.
Much thanks to Disney for releasing this classic family favorite, but the DVD is so lacking. First, my biggest gripe is that the movie is in full screen. So much is cut off in some scenes that it cannot be missed. For example, in one scene, Dean Jones is sitting in a car talking with one of his co-stars sitting next to him. Only half or even as little as one third of the actors face is visible. Very annoying to watch. Another glitch is the audio. For some reason the audio is terribly low on this DVD. Usually DVD sound is crystal clear and sometimes in surround sound, however, while watching the movie I had to raise the audio on my television to a very high setting just to hear it.
I do appreciate the release of this movie on DVD, but this movie that was such an ejoyable part of many viewers childhoods really deserved much more respect and should have had more attention when being put onto DVD. Hopefully Disney will put forth more effort when releasing their classics in the future.

Blackbeard's Ghost Should Have Stayed Away
While not a great moment in movie history, Blackbeard's Ghost is a fun film for families and stars the always-great Peter Ustinov. I had been looking forward to it's release on DVD as the print I had on VHS was so terrible, I felt surely that the DVD would offer a better print (and based on the quality of the prints on the recently-released Vault Disney titles I had purchased, I felt even more assured that it would). I was sooooo disappointed today when I received my copy of Blackbeard's Ghost. Of all of the DVDs I have purchased from a name studio, this has to be the worst I have ever seen. The print used seems to be the same as the one used for the old VHS I have. The picture contrast is terrible. The print itself is full of scratches and blemishes and the picture is very grainy. Worst of all it is presented in full screen (I seem to remember reading it would be widescreen when it was first announced), which leaves parts of the picture lopped off. An example of this is when Dean Jones' character is talking to a student while driving and the right half of Jones' face is missing while the left half of the student's is gone. The biggest example of the low quality of the print used is the opening titles. Since the film was not presented in widescreen (although it wouldn't have been too wide, I'm sure), the opening credits are "squished" up, with the picture being presented slightly off-center, leaving about a 1 1/2 inch black space up the left side of my screen. I know this film is not considered a classic by most, but I was hoping Disney would have thought it was and done better than this. Maybe some day they will.

Video quality? Expected better...
This of course is an excellent movie - Ustinov is excellent as well as Dean.

However, I honestly expected better quality video from a re-released classic movie from Disney. The opening credits are truncated on the left side - it almost appeared that the opening credis were done with a hand-held video camera (someone with the wiggles of course). Tons of video artifacts exist throughout the movie (white dust, contrast problems, scratches, blooming, and washed out color etc.). It doesn't seem to have been given the "Snow White" treatment that other released products have gone through.