(Contains spoiler info) Definitely not a 21st century movie. The female lead is out to catch a man any way she can. Her men are either overtly dominant and aggressive to her, in a way that no (few) modern women would accept, or else they are entirely passive and destined to be passed over.The male lead becomes a pirate, which is OK with the film's audience because he's stealing from a 'bad guy'. One of his men gets killed when the screen villain double-crosses him, and nary a word is said about it.Drunks are 'funny.' No one goes to AA :) .I enjoyed the movie, but it's a fantasy that no modern audience would accept.

If ever there was an "almost best" movie, Corsair is it! Chester Morris never gave a more vigorous performance, Fred Kohler was never more hissable, and Thelma Todd was never more sexy. But, putting the leads to one side, the movie also represents the crowning acting achievements of Frank Rice and Mayo Methot. Ned Sparks and Emmett Corrigan just miss the top rung – Sparks because he was later to better his role in this one, and Corrigan because he fails to communicate a vital turn in the script. Maybe he was unaware of this, or maybe West wrote the screenplay on the run. But it does make the screenplay's last minute revelation seem rather weak and forced. Also, as other critics have pointed out, the Fred Kohler plot is left hanging and not brought to its expected conclusion. But otherwise, Corsair is a thrilling gangsters-on-the-high-seas movie, pacily directed, admirably enacted and loaded with visible and highly engaging talent on both sides of the camera.This movie is currently available on two rival DVD labels. So which is the better? It depends what you're looking for. If you want a nice clear, clean, complete, black-and-white print, then Alpha has just what you want. On the other hand, if you'd prefer to see the movie just as it was issued to theatres back in 1931, with all its tinted sequences intact (despite a few scratch marks here and there), then Grapevine is your choice. Me? I choose Grapevine!

The early moments of Corsair offer a big buildup for our first look at Alison Loyd: we can hear her conversation with dance partner Frank McHugh, but our only view is of the back of her head. A moment later she is introduced to football hero Chester Morris, and again, she speaks unseen….until finally, in close up, her big smile flashes onto the screen. –Of course, it's Thelma Todd's smile. This big introduction apparently aims at establishing Todd as a mysterious and glamorous figure; presumably, this is why Todd is billed as "Alison Loyd" for the first and (I think) only time—to differentiate her "new" persona from the light comic actress Thelma Todd had been (and would continue to be, thank heavens!).Unfortunately, the plot and dialog of Corsair offer Todd/Loyd little else to do besides smile and act alternately spoiled and silly. Her character is a major motivator to the actions of other characters—but she really does little and develops less herself. Which is too bad! Director Roland West didn't do Thelma justice by setting her up as a dangerous female and then giving her practically no depth, surprises or even decent lines to speak.Chester Morris comes off better as a football hero turned banker turned pirate. Fired from his broker job for being unwilling to steal a little old lady's savings, he sets out to prove the boss banker wrong in his assertion that Morris doesn't have the nerve to be successful. Nerve? Morris sets up a booze pirating operation that is daring, dangerous and profitable…and sells the banker liquor by the boatload. The middle section of the movie builds tension around Morris's organization and the danger he faces as his victims—a gang of smugglers themselves—eventually catch on to his operation and hatch plans to capture and wipe him out. Indeed, it turns into a pretty good adventure movie once it gets rolling.Frank McHugh adds liveliness in his role as Morris's right hand man. Fred Kohler is appropriately menacing as "Big John" the smuggler. Morris, a solid lead, gives an excellent performance as a man who chooses and sticks to his own unique code of conduct.The scenes between Morris and Todd ought to be the highlights of a film like this….but it's just the opposite. They speak so slowly…how do you make Chester Morris and Thelma Todd into slow talkers? –It's not just a function of the movie being an early talkie, either; there's a deliberateness to these scenes apparently meant to be serious and dramatic—and instead, all it does is drag. As an adventure, it's not bad. But darn, in the "dramatic" sections, this is a movie in bad need of some zippy dialog.

Ex-football player Chester Morris, egged on by rich girl Thelma Todd, tries bootlegging and piracy as a career. Will he continue to triumph over the villainous gangsters whose cargoes he hijacks, with friends Ned Sparks and Frank McHugh, or will Big John get his revenge on the crew of the CORSAIR? This isn't a great work of art, and no new ground is broken. But once the plot gets rolling (it takes about a reel), this is a darn good action flick with a nice straightforward leading-man performance out of Morris, a surprisingly sympathetic turn out of Ned Sparks, and much of the fluid, frequently beautiful camera work and staging that is characteristic of director Roland West. Mayo Methot probably gets the best acting scene, and, in this case, is helped by her director, who has the sense to let the scene play out with simple lighting and staging. The director, indeed, helps himself by downplaying some of the camera showiness on films like Alibi and The Bat, and by improving, significantly, his direction of actors and his pacing of the story.We do not have a perfect film here. Thelma Todd is around to look pretty, but she had not found her dramatic acting chops at the time this movie was shot. Also, the ending of the movie is utterly wrong and too drawn out. But in its middle reels, this movie is as spry and well-paced as a typical Warners movie, and suggests that Morris could have had a much better movie career with more films like this. Worth seeing -- particularly if you think 1931 movies are all people standing around and declaiming while the camera stays put.