John Paul Jones (1959)

 

                    There had been talk of making a John Paul Jones movie starting in the 1930’s.  James Cagney, John Wayne, Glenn Ford, and Richard Basehart were all considered for the lead.  It was finally made by director John Farrow (“Wake Island”).  It was his last film.  He treated it as a family affair as his son played the young Jones and his daughter Mia made her film debut.  The screenplay was based on the story “Nor’wester” by Clements Ripley.  Max Steiner did the score.  The movie was made in Denia, Spain.  It had the cooperation of the U.S. Navy which provided the USS Des Moines for the opening and closing scenes.  The movie opens with a dedication to Chester Nimitz for his “unflagging encouragement and inspiration”.  The movie was a box office bomb.

                    In 1759, the young John Paul throws a rock at a British officer enforcing the law against Scots using bagpipes and wearing kilts.  A few years later, he goes to sea and a montage shows him doing various jobs as he works his way up to captain.  In 1773, he kills a mutinous sailor who has connections, so the governor of Tobago suggests he flee to Virginia.  He adds Jones to his name and starts a new life as a businessman.  He inherits two slave boys, but frees them because he abhors slavery.  He attempts to win the hand of a local upper-class beauty, but her father feels Jones is too disreputable.  His lawyer is one Patrick Henry and they share a dislike for British rule.  When the war breaks out, he gives up farming and heads back to sea.  He is successful, but unrewarded similar to Benedict Arnold.  He goes to Valley Forge to resign to Washington himself.  The End.  But wait, Washington convinces him to take dispatches to Benjamin Franklin (Charles Coburn) in Paris.  Franklin tosses him a French girl worthy of the movie poster and gets him a ship from the king that Jones names after his benefactor.  The Bonhomme Richard is destined to sail Jones into history.  And a quote is going to make him a superstar.  This being a biopic, not a battle movie, the film covers Jones’ post-war career in Russia and concludes with his death.

                    As a biopic, the movie is a bit too stiff.  Stack plays Jones as a blunt and cheerless.  This may be accurate, but means the main character is a bore.  It does not delve into the controversies surrounding his style of command.  He was often at odds with superiors, subordinates, and crews.  This is no “Patton”.  It is much closer to “PT-109”.  And unlike those movies, but like every other 1950’s biopic, it shoehorns romances into the plot.  His romantic moments with Dorothea (Erin O’Brien) have dialogue straight out of a romance novel.  His two romances are both chaste and unconsummated, so there is not chance for passion.  That may be for the best since we are talking about Robert Stack here.  The rest of the cast is fine with the cameos by historical figures like Washington, Henry, and Catherine the Great (Bette Davis) being a treat.  Coburn gets the juiciest role as Franklin and it is a shame Jones did not have his charisma.                 

                    The biggest problem with the movie is the lack of action.  Jones’ greatest hits are handled montage-style and this is supposed to tide us over until the Battle off Flamborough Head.  Even this set-piece is truncated.  There is no lead-in.  The Bonhomme Richard and Serapis go straight to grappling with no preliminary broadsides.  However, from there the scene is vibrant and gets the basics right.  Other than no reloading of muskets.  There are grenades for crowd-pleasing explosions.  Stack handles the “I have not yet begun to fight” moment with enough verve to justify its fame.  Naturally, the rest of the movie is superfluous, but credit the screenwriters for carrying the biopic to its depressing end.  While that end is accurate, the rest of the film shows a lot of historical license.

                    “John Paul Jones” is an acceptable tale of a patriotic legend.  But if you want the truth over the legend, it is a misfire.  Jones comes off as one-dimensional and has no warts.  Stack was a good choice given the screenplay that portrays Jones as a prickly patriot.  The movie surrounds him with other heroes in what impresses as stunt casting.  These cameos are part of the reason the movie has whiffs of bull crap and it turns out that reading about Jones’ life confirms this.  It’s a shame the production was not postponed until the new wave of biopics like “Patton” came along.  But when you are buried at Annapolis, it is unlikely the Navy would have approved a script that included frolicking.  With that said, Jones was a great man and deserves the title “Father of the Navy”.  He was so great, he could have handled a truer story of his life.

GRADE  =  C

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  The opening with young John Paul assaulting a British officer was clearly invented to give him anti-British bona fides.  He did go to sea the next year at age 13 from Whitehaven.  He served on a series of merchant ships and slavers.  He did develop a disgust for the slave trade.  By  1770, he was captain of his own ship.  He flogged a sailor who was accused of plotting mutiny.  The sailor died a few weeks later, probably unrelated to the whipping, but Jones was in trouble for it.  He was forced to get out of town.  Three years later the incident depicted in the movie occurred.  Jones murdered a mutineer with a sword.  The Governor of Tobago did let him escape.  He went to Virginia, where his brother had settled, and changed his name.  I found no evidence for his knowing Patrick Henry and almost surely the slave boys were invented for the movie.  Although Jones was a noted ladies’ man and had many paramours over the years, I found nothing about a Dorothea.  He did go to the Second Continental Congress to offer his services and was endorsed by Richard Henry Lee.  He was made 1^st Lt. on the Alfred, which became the first Continental Navy ship to sail.  He performed with distinction at Nassau and returned to command the small 16-gun Providence.  He took numerous prizes in a couple of cruises, but fell into disfavor for disputes with Commodore Esek Hopkins.  Because of this he was inactive from late 1776 to early 1777.  I found no evidence he visited both Hancock and Washington to try to resign, although he undoubtedly was frustrated.  The scene where he goes to Valley Forge is pure bull shit.  In 1777, he was given command of the Ranger.  He sailed for France, but not with dispatches about the Battle of Saratoga because before landing at Brest, he cruised the British Isles taking enough prizes to arrive in France a hero.  He did meet Franklin and Ben was probably influential in his getting the Bonhomme Richard.  But first, he cruised again in the Ranger and made the raid on the British seaport shown in the movie.  This was Whitehaven, the same port he had sailed from as a teenager.  The movie gives the patriotic version of unqualified success when actually the raid was mostly a failure with the intended burning of the ships a fizzle and Jones and his men having to high-tail it back to their ship.  Perplexingly, the movie skips his subsequent capture of the HMS Drake in an hour long gun duel.  It was one of the few significant victories for the fledgling navy.  The movie chosing not to depict this rousing battle was a big mistake.  In 1779, King Louis XVI gave him the Bonhomme Richard. 

                    The Battle of Flamborough Head is fairly accurate.  The movie does not tell us that Jones was in command of a fleet and was trying to reach a British convoy when the HMS Serapis  and another ship interposed themselves.  The battle opened with some broadsides, but Jones realized his ship was outgunned so he grappled.  Jones did not lead a boarding party.  Neither side attempted to board.  The battle was basically an effort to clear the deck of the opposing vessel to allow boarding.  The Bonhomme Richard took the worst of the gunfire and grenades.  At one point, his flag was knocked down and the British captain asked if he had surrendered.  In an apocryphal rejoinder, Jones said “I have not yet begun to fight!”  You can not expect the movie to have not gone with the legend.  Most likely, he actually said “I am determined to make YOU strike!” or (according to some of his crew) “I may sink, but I’ll be damned if I strike!”  Regardless, he should have lost, but for a lucky grenade that landed in British powder and blew surrender into the British.  The movie has the Bonhomme Richard sinking soon after when in reality it was a day later.

                 After the war, Jones may have argued for a larger fleet, but he did not quit because they pish-poshed that.  He was sent to France to get this thorn out of their side.  In France he was given the unglamourous job of dealing with prize money claims.  In 1787, he jumped at employment with the Russian navy.  He did meet Catherine and was made a Rear Admiral.  He participate, but not by himself as the movie implies, in the actions against the Turks in the Black Sea.  Jones’ prickly personality and his naivete about Russian politics made enemies of other admirals and he was accused of sexual misconduct with a twelve-year old.  While he was probably framed, he did admit to “frolicking with the girl” and was clear this meant sex.  Although technically still in the Russian navy, he ended up in France where the U.S. government appointed him Consul to Algeria.  He died of a kidney inflammation before he could assume a role that he was ill-suited for.