Review of Raiders of the Seven Seas

Low-budget independent (released through United Artists) pirate adventure starring John Payne has him as famed pirate Barbarossa fighting against a corrupt Spanish officer (Gerald Mohr), with an uncomfortable-looking Donna Reed miscast as the "fiery" daughter of a Spanish governor who is Payne's love interest. In every one of director Sidney Salkow's films I've seen he's had problems with pacing, and his track record is unbroken here. It moves like molasses, with awkward dialog scenes broken up by mostly lackadaisical, by-the-numbers action scenes (and some rather shoddy miniature work for the ship-to-ship battles). Payne is earnest, and actually a bit more animated than he normally tends to be, but Reed looks like she wished she was somewhere else. A decent supporting cast helps somewhat, but overall the picture is pretty standard fare.