John Paul Jones ** (1959, Robert Stack, Marisa Pavan, Charles Coburn, Bette Davis) – Classic Movie Review 8162

Director John Farrow’s 1959 swashbuckling, naval history adventure movie John Paul Jones stars Robert Stack as the Scottish adventurer and American Revolutionary War naval hero, based on the story Nor’wester by Clements Ripley.

He makes it big in the US Navy during the American Civil War in this bearable but often uninvolving biopic of hero John Paul Jones. The epic tale takes us on a whirlwind tour of his career from his youth in Scotland through his service to Catherine the Great when Congress sends him to Russia.

Guest stars Bette Davis, Jean-Pierre Aumont and Charles Coburn jolly the movie along as Catherine the Great, Louis XIV and Benjamin Franklin, while impressive action and war scenes spark up an otherwise dull pageant. The not particularly inspiring screenplay is by John Farrow and Jesse Lasky Jr, with uncredited work by Ben Hecht.

Also in the cast are Marisa Pavan, Peter Cushing, Bruce Cabot, Macdonald Carey, Erin O’Brien, Mia Farrow, David Farrar, Basil Sidney, John Crawford, John Charles Farrow, Eric Pohlmann, Frank Latimore, Ford Rainey, Bruce Seton, Paul Curran, Rupert Davies, John Phillips and Archie Duncan.

Other great Catherines: Elisabeth Bergner in The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934), Marlene Dietrich in The Scarlet Empress (1934), Tallulah Bankhead in A Royal Scandal [Czarina] (1945) and Jeanne Moreau in Great Catherine (1968).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8162

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com