Product Description

No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: NR
Release Date: 20-APR-2004
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30351 in DVD
• Brand: QUINN,ANTHONY
• Released on: 2004-04-20
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .24 pounds
• Running time: 103 minutes

Customer Reviews

Overlooked pirate masterpeice
Ahh, after watching the widescreen of this long forgotten gem on cable, we knew that a DVD was inevitable. So this review is based on the Widescreen version shown on Fox.
This is a remarkable story of a group of children who accidentally find themselves aboard a pirate ship. This is not Disney fare - there are instances of brutality, terror, death and injustice - and an ending that is totally honest and devastating.
Beautiful locations, superb photography, gifted child actors. It goes from comedy to suspense to adventure without missing a beat. If you can overlook the awful miscasting of James Coburn, the movie is nearly perfect.
THE DVD: A very good transfer from excellent elements, given the film's age. The soundtrack is a bit muddy, but that's just the way it was back then. A bare bones release, sadly, as I'd be very interested in the history and box office performance of this very uncommon film. A magnifying glass is required to know which side has the widscreen and which has the pan-n-scan. For some nutty reason they only printed the ratio on one side - so even though you see the word WIDESCREEN, if you put it in with that side up, you'll get pan-n-scan. Put the DVD in "blank' side up to see the widescreen.

Classic story-telling in the best English tradtion . . .
It was the mid-summer of 1990-1991, here in Felix Australis. I was on the long trail from Melbourne to Adelaide, driving into the searing heat of a relentess western sun . . .

I stopped at a dusty place by the name of Horsham, the chief town in the middle of the dry, arid, and sun-scorched land of the Wimmera, in western Victoria. I went to the local modern super-market, and happened upon a small heap of discounted books. Being a reader & a book-seller by trade, I turned the stock over and, to my delight, found a hardback copy by Chatto & Windus, London, of Richard Hughes' "A High Wind In Jamaica", among other marvels . . . I had never read it in all my fifty-three years! Three cheers, I thought, for the book buyer in, what seemed to me, this most unlikely place!

Tired as I was, I read avidly into the night . . .

What a marvellous experience in imagination! What superb use of the English language! Even the heat and discomfort of the opressive summer night assisted my entry into the wonderous tropical world of the West Indies & high adventure.

Some years later, I viewed the movie on TV, staring Anthony Quinn, which I found to be an exhilarating representation of Hughes' story. However, I could not find a video anywhere and sadly, gave up the search.

How marvellous to learn that it is now available on DVD!

Full marks to the Screen-writer, the Actors, the Director & the Producer and all those involved, especially FOX! Thank you. Thank you, Thank you . . .

And thanks to Richard Hughes, that genius of English story-telling, as well as to the Editor of Chatto & Windus, way back in 1929, who had the wit to publish it!

Magic!

Wish they still made movies of this caliber
I first watched this movie when I was a young girl. I have watched this movie at least 20 times and I am now purchasing the DVD for my grandkids.
This movie does not have the Hollywood glam that can ruin a movie. I cry each time I watch this movie and I am still moved by the story line. Anthony Quinn and James Coburn are at their bests. People who do not like this movie are usually too young to remember when movies were made without special effects and the scripts had to carry the movie, this script does that very well.