Murky, bad color and in really bad shape. Scratches and splices abound, "matey"! Argh! A throwback to "Africa Screams" which is also public domain and a far funnier movie. Like "Jack and the Beanstalk" you wish a better copy existed. The routines seem tired; you've seen them all before. Instead of buckshot in the eggs, there's soap bubbles in the soup! Here's the plot in one sentence: Lou has the treasure map and they all sail off to Skull Island to dig up the bounty. Too much bad stock footage and poor "color-timing" (matching) in the ship-to-ship battles. Clumsily staged action scenes and the worst songs ever. Charles Laughton has a great time. He outshines "the boys" in an otherwise predictable movie with the old "it's the wrong box" gimmick. (The treasure map and love note are in identical wooden tubes.) The tall, blonde, tomboyish pirate falls in love with Lou. Costello plays Capt. Kidd surprisingly well; he strips poor Kidd down to his underwear and impersonates him, in full uniform. Lou becomes the new pirate captain, and poor Capt. Kidd gets hung upside down from the yard-arm. They all sail away, happily singing, into the sunset. This is one of those "it should have been better" movies. WB distributed both "Capt. Kidd" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" at the theaters. Too bad they can't find better copies and re-release them on Blu-Ray. The public domain copies are "junk."

Egad, this is an awful and dull film. Considering that Abbott and Costello had a whole lot of films behind them and some clout, I always have wondered why they agreed to do some seriously bad films--particularly in the latter part of their careers. Were they THAT in need of money or narcissistic that they'd agree to be in films even if they are just plain awful? I know that after WWII, Bud and Lou had some serious tax problems and lost their fortunes, but I would have assumed by 1952 and with a lot of films behind them they still didn't need money THIS badly! What's so bad about this film? Well, the first and most obvious are the wretched songs. Not only are they totally inappropriate for a pirate film, they are even more distracting than the songs in their other movies. The other obvious problem was Charles Laughton. While an exceptional actor, he had a reputation for over-acting if the director didn't keep a firm hand. In this film, you'd assume there is no director at all, as any sane director would have told Laughton to shut up...or at least stop screaming!! It seems that Laughton's interpretation of Captain Kidd is a man who talks at the top of his voice all the time! It's actually amazing to think that Laughton was NOT in his first film but an accomplished actor--his acting was THAT bad.Speaking of the real Kidd, almost nothing about this film is like real pirates or the real Kidd. It's like one cliché after another. Pirates (with the exception of Blackbeard) were not bully-boys, as their crew would have killed them and the real life Kidd was completely dominated by his crew. Heck, he apparently only turned to piracy because his crew gave him the choice of this or death! There are also only two cases of female pirates (a common Hollywood cliché) and neither were captains--just crew members on the same small and insignificant ship. Also, if real pirates had met these jolly singing idiot pirates, they probably would have killed them--as well as marveled at how clean and well-dressed the all were! Why, oh why couldn't they just shut up and quit with the singing?! As for Bud and Lou, they seemed to have less screen time than usual in this film. They are like bystanders throughout much of the film. When they are involved, it usually consists of scenes where Laughton screams at Lou. Wow, that's funny...not! Among the team's least funny and enjoyable films. The only one that might be as bad or worse is JACK AND THE BEANSTALK--even IT AIN'T HAY, LOST IN ALASKA and Africa SCREAMS are much better than this film.You know, I had considered doing this review like Laughton emoted in the film, but I don't think IMDb allow reviews that are in all capital letters!! For information on the real Kidd, try www.thepiratesrealm.com/Captain%20Kidd.html .

I don't mind that the movie has no plot or that it's so noisy my 90-year old grandmother complained or that Charles Laughton thinks he's the one who should supply the laughs and not the menace. What I do mind is that A&C have so little to do. They manage a few bits, but these are crowded out by the chaotic knock-about. It's like someone said we don't have a script or any routines, so let's just run around, make noise, and maybe no one will notice. Maybe the best thing is the really great special effects. The masted ships and sea battle look like they come from an A-production, which they may have. But even the explosions on the sea-shore sets are well done. Too bad the rest of the movie doesn't rise to that level. And pity the poor regally composed Hillary Brooke who looks like she's missing all the mayhem, at the same time Laughton manages more mugs per minute than a race car generates RPM's. In my little book, this is one of the least of the 5 or 6 entries in the A&C Meets... series.

I taped this off UK TV in 1988 – the washed out condition of the print even then made it look as if it could be from 300 years ago, but recently seeing the even more degraded copy TCM US is showing made me think it really was! How did this get into such a state – the wobbly cheap colour and choppy copies from multiple TV dupes haven't helped to be sure, but it all makes it a bit of an ordeal to sit through without rose-tinted glasses on.At the cutely named Death's Head Tavern Bud & Lou unwittingly join forces with Charles Laughton playing Captain Kidd on the track of a treasure island – much fun is made of the map of Skull Island continually getting mixed up with Lou's supposed My Darling Darling Darling love letter. Add a deliberately devilish Leif Erickson as a sidekick for Laughton and elegant Hilary Brook as a pantomime Captain Bonney for something good to look at and you have the main crew. There's plenty of lusty non-pc songs, maybe too many but some not too bad and all well sung, my favourite being the romantic Speak To Me sung by the corny romantic leads on the pirate ship. It was the 2nd of the two films A&C did for Warners in 1952 (this was Bud's choice, Jack was Lou's), and was amazingly successful noisy slapstick at the time; the reason given by Laughton as to why he accepted the role was to learn how to do double takes from Costello. He generally hammed it up nicely and he and the boys in particular seemed to enjoy themselves, but it all seemed a bit too laboured at times.For anyone new who might be interested in A&C this is not the film to start with, unless you're under 10 years old. And yet … I still end up watching this jolly nonsense every five years or so, never mind the grotty condition.