250 Films: 6/50 Favourite Films: The Pirate (1948)
I wish you would stop circling me this way. It’s like talking to a top!
He’s not marrying you to listen to you.
Don’t call me pure soul, it irritates me!
Someday he’ll swoop down and carry me away like a chicken hawk.
For once and for all, I do not love you. I know this may be hard for you to understand but I do not love you.
You know, it’s not essential for you to love me to be in the troupe. It helps but it’s not essential.
I am an artist, not a blackmailer!
You should try underplaying sometime. It’s very effective.
I can see us now. You with your cutlass in one hand and your, your, your, your compass in the other, shouting orders to your pirate crew.
Can’t you see I’m trying to be big about this?!
It’s true when I first watched this film, I didn’t like it very much. And you know why? I didn’t get it.
Then I read somewhere that they made it as an homage and affectionate parody of all those swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks pirate films of early Hollywood. I went back to it and oh my god, how it opened up and became all flavours of deliciousness.
“Look, it’s a really sexy film, okay? And Judy and Gene’s chemistry just flames right off the screen. Even before I discovered there was such a thing as shipping, I was waving that flag hard. You can’t watch Gene Kelly kiss Judy Garland’s bared shoulder and see the way she shudders without getting it just a bit.”
^^^THAT.
HOLY SNIZZLE, THAT.