The Boy and the Pirate/Crystalstone [2 Discs] [DVD]

Quickie-flick entrepreneur Bert I. Gordon makes a bid for the kiddie trade in The Boy and the Pirates. Charles Herbert, the juvenile star of 13 Ghosts, plays a contemporary kid who finds a bottle on the beach. The bottle contains genie Joseph Turkel (a loyal member of Stanley Kubrick's "stock company"), who whisks Herbert back in time and on board the pirate ship captained by Bluebeard (Murvyn Vye, whose performance is as shamelessly over-the-top as anything concocted by Robert Newton). Reams of stock footage later, Herbert escapes Bluebeard's clutches, together with his new friend Susan Gordon (Bert I. Gordon's daughter). Veteran Hollywood scrivener Lillie Hayward brings some much-needed class and polish to the low-budget proceedings.~Hal Erickson