Mr. BIG's Pirates

THE BOY AND THE PIRATES-1960-Jimmy (Charles Herbert), a little kid who likes pirates finds a bottle with a mini-genie (Joe Turkel) in it. Because of a wish he makes Jimmy winds up on “The Queen's Revenge”, a pirate ship ruled by the infamous Blackbeard (Murvyn Vye)) who makes Jimmy his cabin boy. He has to swab the deck, clean fish and get rum for the captain. After the pirates loot and kill on a Dutch ship Jimmy (who Blackbeard calls a “miserable cabin rat”) rescues Katrina (Susan Gordon), a girl about his age. Blackbeard wants to throw her overboard by Jimmy stands up for her. When the crew learn their captain is after some gold Morgan (Timothy Carey) tries to burn out Jimmy's tongue. When a British ship attacks The Queens Revenge, Jimmy and Katrina escape to an island but Blackbeard follows them. Jimmy throws the genie bottle at the pirate and he winds up back home. Despite being aimed at kids there's long stretches of talk and blood and violence. 

This bizarre kiddie swashbuckling fantasy was the first color film for “Mr. BIG” himself Bert I. Gordon (still alive at the time of this writing). There are no giant monsters but it's definitely a low budget production with some mediocre SFX. This was the second of four appearances for Susan Gordon in her dad's movies. Star Charles Herbert was also a popular child star at the time having been in THE FLY and THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK and many TV shows. He was in William Castle's 13 GHOSTS the same year.

Thanks for reading, matey!