Corsair

High Seas Hi-Jinks
The director of "The Bat" and "The Bat Whispers(a sound version)" returns to production with 1932's "Corsair". Flamboyant Roland West's "Corsair" stars his favorite Chester Morris as a failed stockbroker who roams the high seas robbing bootleg liquor from other bootleggers, including his former boss(and father of his girl friend). Morris huffs and puffs(he's a former football star) as best he can, with all the 1930's bravura he can muster. The location photography at sea is good, but the story drags in the middle. The pretty blond is played by West's true-life lover, Thelma Todd, who just a few years later would be found mysteriously murdered(or not) in a car in front of their Malibu Beach restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway. Director Roland West was later charged with murder, but was eventually acquitted. The scandal would ruin his career, and no more films would follow. One of Hollywood's most inovative talents would see an early end to his success. Warch "Corsair" for a number of...

Much better and smarter than its reputation
I wasn't expecting much from this film. I watched it mainly because it stars two favorites of mine - Chester Morris and Thelma Todd. I was very pleasantly surprised. The film opens with John Hawks (Chester Morris), a collegiate football star, winning the big game. Later that night, at a society party, he meets Alison Corning (Thelma Todd) who personifies every argument in favor of the inheritance tax you've ever heard with the saying "spare the rod spoil the child" thrown in for good measure. She's beautiful, spoiled, used to getting whatever and whoever she wishes, and will do anything for a thrill. John's bad luck is that she wants him from first sight. She convinces her big Wall Street financier dad, "Steve" as she calls him, to give John a job at his firm. John is hardly enamored by Alison. He can see right through her, and on the surface that's got to be a pleasant experience for any guy, but then you get to the not-so-gooey middle. This is what repels him.

So John...

DIVERSE, PRE-CODE ACTIONER
CORSAIR (Artcinema, 1931), was director Roland West's last movie, and while he wasn't prolific, West's films were unconventional as to subject matter and innovative in their visual design.

Future "Boston Blackie" Chester Morris excels as a football hero who becomes a rum-runner in order to get even with the Wall Street big-wig who fired him. He does this by hijacking his former boss's deckloads of booze and selling them back to him. Ravishing Thelma Todd, billed as Alison Lloyd, is tops as the stock broker's society daughter whom Morris falls for. The supporting cast is first-rate, with Fred Kohler as the rival bootlegger whom Morris heists, Ned Sparks and Mayo Methot as a couple who are spying on Kohler, and Frank McHugh as Morris' loyal pal.

This interesting tale of Prohibition-era piracy on the high seas is unique among '30's gangster films in the way it equates the crooked business tactics of Wall Street with big-time racketeering. West's visual flair is well...

Click to Editorial Reviews