The Master of Ballantrae

The Master of Ballantrae Review

The Master of Ballantrae just might have worked as a sprawling period swashbuckler if...the Master of Ballantrae, the eldest son of the laird of Clan Durie who fights for Bonnie Prince Charlie and loses, hadn't been such a self-centered clod who let his love of gold, wenches and adventure get in the way of honor, wisdom and trust, and if...Errol Flynn had been ten years younger. At 44, he looks 54, and often a puffy and tired 54 at that. If he were younger, he might have convinced us that the selfish and impetuous Jamie Durie would sometime soon in the movie find something honorable to do that would make us root for the romantic and dashing fellow. Looking in his mid-fifties, however, Flynn resembles an aging, petulant rake, and we know it's unlikely that there is any chance of a charming good guy emerging from the husk.

Robert Lewis Stevenson doesn't help. His Master is unredeemably and emotionally selfish, even though a dab hand with a sword, at piracy, with the ladies and with holding a grudge. No man in his right mind would place anyone he loves in the self-centered path of Jamie Durie. Flynn doesn't have much of a chance. It's clear Flynn's rapscallion, romantic, swashbuckling days have long gone by.

The story of the Master of Ballantrae bears some resemblance to Stevenson's novel. A toss of a coin determines that Jamie, the Master, will fight for the Stuart restoration when Charlie Stuart arrives from France to try to wrest the throne away from the Hanoverian King George II. As the elder brother, Jamie will inherit the Durie title and estates. The year is 1745. Jamie's younger brother, Henry (Anthony Steele), will support George. This way, whichever side wins, Clan Durie will have backed the winner. Henry is everything Jamie is not. He's conscientious, honorable and dull. And when Charlie loses, Jamie has to hightail it out of Scotland. Penniless, more or less, he encounters another rogue, Colonel Francis Burke (Roger Livesey, in a rollicking performance, and made up to look more of a drunk than Flynn), and off they go on the adventures of wenching and piracy, fighting and guffawing that make up most of the movie. Jamie never forgets, however, that he has a score to settle with Henry, for by now, thanks to jealousy and treachery, Henry has become the Master of Ballantrae and the heir to Clan Durie. If Jamie can't have the title, then when he sneaks back to Scotland he wants the woman who goes with the title, plus a good deal of money. He's more than willing to kill Henry to get all this.

Much of the movie was photographed in Scotland and looks great. Jack Cardiff gets the credit. The screenplay is often a bawdy, rag tag braggadocio of ripe dialogue credited to Herb Meadow with additional dialogue by Harold Medford. There is a rousing sea attack, some full-bodiced wenches in Tortuga, a fine, mannered dandy of a French pirate captain and a rouser of a Flynn sword fight. Unfortunately, it's obvious to one who looks closely that Flynn's fencing double is getting more screen time that Flynn during the fight. Even so, the story is something of a downer, the tale of a man who could never have enough, who kept close his resentments, who never forgot and who never learned. Well, maybe he learned a little at the end...if he listened to his great, true and only friend, Burke: "Not much time to remember all the girls you've known, all the laughter you've heard, all the gold you've spent, and all the plans you had to spend more. The places we've not seen, Jamie! The things that lie about the world! The fun of it!" Perhaps, but the happy end is about as abrupt and startling as suddenly opening a boiled haggis.

Roger Livesey, a fine British actor, would have overshadowed Flynn, in my opinion, if he hadn't carefully modulated bits and pieces of his performance. Burke is a dangerous rogue, but, unlike Jamie Durie, he's likable. To see Livesey at his very best, watch him in those three classic movies he starred in for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I'm Going and A Matter of Life and Death.

If we want to remember Errol Flynn in his sad decline, let it be in that unremembered Western shot cheaply in 1950 and not promoted by the studio, Rocky Mountain. Flynn's prematurely aged face brings authenticity to a Confederate officer who, with his small group of men, decides to act with honor and to accept the consequences. Flynn could act when it suited him.

The DVD color transfer is adequate, but only a first-rate restoration will do justice to all that gorgeous scenery.

The Master of Ballantrae Overview

Shot in Britain, the Scottish Highlands, and a quasi-Caribbean corner of Italy, The Master of Ballantrae has a goofy charm reminiscent of certain Michael Powell movies--a comparison encouraged by Jack Cardiff's magic-hour Technicolor and an exuberant costar turn for Roger Livesey. Something of an autumnal swashbuckler for Errol Flynn, it's also the last film for William Keighley, the starting director on Adventures of Robin Hood 15 years earlier. The Robert Louis Stevenson tale hop-skip-jumps through Bonnie Prince Charlie's bid to reclaim Scotland, the ensuing English crackdown, a bloody falling-out between brothers (Flynn and Anthony Steel), two overlapping romantic triangles, two assumed deaths (same guy), piracy on the high seas, yo-ho-ho in Tortuga, then back to Ballantrae for several showdowns--all in 89 minutes. Call it picaresque or just cockeyed, this amiable entertainment deserves rescuing from oblivion. Likewise the post-pretty-boy Flynn, whose jaded bonhomie plays into the quirky mix. --Richard T. Jameson