HURRICANE ISLAND (1951) is another in a series of mediocre Pirate Films churned out or released through Columbia Pictures. Non of which is going to make you forget about CAPTAIN BLOOD, THE SEA HAWK or THE BLACK SWAN. This one is not up to the level of those that usually featured Paul Henreid. Here we have Jon Hall as Capitan Carlos Montalvo and Marie Windsor, Pirate Queen Jan Bolton.The objective, the 'Fountain Of Youth' on the island of Florida. Capitan Montalvo wants it to restore the health of Ponce de Leon. Pirate Bolton and her Buccaneers want the alleged Gold. In the way, the indigent People, Indians, some wanting peace the others war. Who will win out, watch it and see. There is a Hurricane at the end of the film. If you expect it to be a spectacle, look somewhere else. There is NO John Fulton, Gordon Jennings or Fred Sersen masterminding the SFX here. Forget the musical score also. Largely recycled from the Humphrey Bogart WWII actioneer SAHARA.Poor Mr. Hall and Ms. Windsor. Both had successful careers with the major and 2nd tier studios from the late 1930s through 1940s. This is quite a step down for them. Both would find more rewards, both financially and professionally, in the new medium of Television in the 1950s.

Well this is a little surprising, only one other review on the IMDb for this flick as I write this. This morning's airing on TCM may change that, but who knows.Anyway, I was somewhat disappointed here, what with Jon Hall and Marie Windsor as the leading principals, but sometimes it's the writing that gets in the way of a good story. I guess I just wasn't expecting the fat sidekick Jose (Romo Vincent) to come out with a line like "Look, women, oodles of them"! At least not in a pirate movie set in the 1500's.Well I don't know how closely this follows the story of the historical Ponce de Leon and his search for the Fountain of Youth, but I'm guessing this was done pretty much on the fly. Old Ponce (Edgar Barrier) takes an arrow to the shoulder and spends most of the film on his back recuperating, so it's not really even his story when you come right down to it. It's left to Captain Carlos Montalvo (Hall) and his crew to complete a dual mission of finding the legendary Fountain of Youth and whatever gold and riches they come across along the way.The best thing this film has going for it is the 'new' Supercinecolor format that must have been a pretty big deal in 1950. Did you ever notice in color films of the era that every other one had a different name for their color filming process? At least the colors here were brilliant, as in the blues of the sky and ocean and the bright red of the Captain's outfit. Somehow though, I couldn't relate all that brightness to Cuba in 1513, but maybe it's just me.So did they find the magic fountain? Well there's good news and bad news here. Ponce underwent a miraculous recovery as soon as he took a sip from a golden cup, but in trying to leave the Yuracan, Indian Chief Maria (Karen Randle) did a Dorian Gray and aged somewhat ungracefully. But instead of using time lapse photography to make her grow old, they just put mud on her face and let it go at that. What a downer.

SPOILERS - It's no Black Swan or Cutthroat Island or even Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, but Hurricane Island is fun if you dial your expectations down to extreme low tide. It's a combination of historical epic and fantasy, set just two decades after Columbus's discovery of the New World. You have beefy hero Jon Hall and his crew, carting famed explorer Ponce de León (Edgar Barrier) around Cuba and pre-colonial Florida in a bed as they seek a cure for the poison arrow that hit de Leon in the opening scenes. You have lady pirate (in 1513!) Marie Windsor, in her Technicolor-red lipstick, and evil pirate Marc Lawrence scheming with a warlike native brave.Of course, the real Ponce de León was a slaver who put down Indian rebellions brutally and died from his poison-arrow wound; but in this version, he ends up an enlightened seeker of peace, grateful for the help of native shaman Okhala (Jo Gilbert), who guides the party to the Fountain of Youth, here represented by a backlot waterfall with a gush of water spouting up in the pool below. No, Ponce doesn't get any younger, but he does shake off that paralysis (shades of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!) Alas, another sword-and-gun fight breaks out, apparently ruining the fountain which stops spurting.The story by David Matthews is nonsense, with dialogue like Hall (re Windsor's wig): "A blond Spaniard?" Windsor: "You have never been to our northern provinces, there are many of us there." Hall is as wooden as his galleon and Windsor overacts wildly to compensate; unbilled in the otherwise unfamiliar cast is Lyle Talbot as a doctor. It's the kind of B-movie a studio used to be able to crank out on existing Poverty Row sets representing colonial towns and ships, achieving a cheesy epic grandeur. You have to admire producer Sam Katzman and director Lew Landers, who with ratty costumes, bathtub miniatures and a visibly rushed schedule, manage to crowd in stunts, sword fights, Windsor's murderous schemes that end with her falling for that big lunk Hall, a bevy of starlets as women convicts (!) recruited to colonize Florida, a hurricane called up on cue by Gilbert (the same tree keeps falling over in their path), and Gilbert meeting a Lost Horizon-type fate...all in 71 minutes. You won't believe a moment of it, but you will watch it all with an incredulous smile.

I have quite some luck to find rare stuff since a while now. This one, made by Lew Landers, is one little adventure yarn set in sixteenth century, a pirate tale, as he gave us with BARBARY PIRATE, TYRANT OF THE SEA, LAST OF THE BUCCANERS, etc...Always a real pleasure to get one of those so B movies. Even produced by the "infamous" Sam Katzman, I don't present anymore. All those features are built on the same frame , the same scheme. Love, intrigue, action, very tepid but not charmless although, at least for movie buffs like me. Unfortunately, I watched it in black and white instead of colour. I guess it is because of the 16mm print it was from. We can prefer Sidney Salkow's pirates films, but all this old and so rare stuff is and will always be interesting to catch, no matter everything else besides. And Jon Hall without Maria Montez - buried in Montparnasse cemetery in Paris - is sure worth seeing.