The Buccaneer is a 1958 War

War

War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...

 film, made by Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

 like the 1938 version

The Buccaneer (1938 film)

The Buccaneer is a 1938 American adventure film made by Paramount Pictures based on Jean Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. It was produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille from a screenplay by Harold Lamb, Edwin Justus Mayer and C. Gardner Sullivan adapted by Jeanie...

 and shot in Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

 and VistaVision

VistaVision

VistaVision is a higher resolution, widescreen variant of the 35mm motion picture film format which was created by engineers at Paramount Pictures in 1954....

. It takes place during the War of 1812

War of 1812

The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...

, and tells a heavily fictionalized version of how the pirate Jean Lafitte

Jean Lafitte

Jean Lafitte was a pirate and privateer in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 19th century. He and his elder brother, Pierre, spelled their last name Laffite, but English-language documents of the time used "Lafitte", and this is the commonly seen spelling in the United States, including for places...

 helped in the Battle of New Orleans

Battle of New Orleans

The Battle of New Orleans took place on January 8, 1815 and was the final major battle of the War of 1812. American forces, commanded by Major General Andrew Jackson, defeated an invading British Army intent on seizing New Orleans and the vast territory the United States had acquired with the...

 and how he had to choose between fighting for America or for the side most likely to win, Great Britain.

The film is a remake

Remake

A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...

 of the 1938 film of the same name

The Buccaneer (1938 film)

The Buccaneer is a 1938 American adventure film made by Paramount Pictures based on Jean Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. It was produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille from a screenplay by Harold Lamb, Edwin Justus Mayer and C. Gardner Sullivan adapted by Jeanie...

 which starred Fredric March

Fredric March

Fredric March was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr...

 and Akim Tamiroff

Akim Tamiroff

Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff was an Armenian actor. He won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.Tamiroff was born in Tiflis, Russian Empire , of Armenian ethnicity. He trained at the Moscow Art Theatre drama school. He arrived in the U.S. in 1923 on a tour with a troupe of actors...

. The 1938 version was produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille

Cecil B. DeMille

Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...

, but he was seriously ill by the time the 1958 version was made, so he was only the executive producer on that version, leaving his then son-in-law, Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn

Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...

, to direct. It was the only film that Quinn ever directed. Henry Wilcoxon

Henry Wilcoxon

Henry Wilcoxon was an actor born in Roseau, Dominica, British West Indies, and best known as a leading man in many of Cecil B. DeMille's films, also serving as DeMille's associate producer on his later films....

, DeMille's long-time friend, who made frequent appearances in his films, was the actual producer, and DeMille did not receive screen credit, though students of his films would probably say that his touch is obvious throughout the film. Nevertheless, DeMille was unhappy with the film and tried unsuccessfully to improve it; critical response was generally unfavorable, despite some impressive battle scenes.

The 1958 film stars Yul Brynner

Yul Brynner

Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on...

 as Lafitte, Charles Boyer

Charles Boyer

Charles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found success in movies during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised romantic dramas,...

 in the Akim Tamiroff role and Claire Bloom

Claire Bloom

Claire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...

. Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...

 plays a supporting role as Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...

. It was the second time that Heston had played Jackson, having portrayed him earlier in the film The President's Lady

The President's Lady (film)

The President's Lady is a 1953 biographical film of the life of American president, Andrew Jackson and his marriage to Rachel Donelson Robards. The film was made by 20th Century Fox, directed by Henry Levin and produced by Sol C. Siegel with Levin as associate producer...

. Also featured in the cast are Inger Stevens

Inger Stevens

Inger Stevens was a Swedish-American movie and TV actress.- Early life :Inger Stevens was born Inger Stensland in Stockholm, Sweden. She was an insecure child and was often ill. When she was nine, her parents divorced and she moved with her father to New York City...

, Henry Hull

Henry Hull

Henry Watterson Hull was an American character actor with a unique voice, most noted for playing the lead in Universal Pictures's Werewolf of London .-Life and career:Hull was born in Louisville, Kentucky...

, E. G. Marshall

E. G. Marshall

E. G. Marshall was an American actor, best known for his television roles as the lawyer Lawrence Preston on The Defenders in the 1960s, and as neurosurgeon David Craig on The Bold Ones: The New Doctors in the 1970s...

, Lorne Greene

Lorne Greene

Lorne Greene , was the stage name of Lyon Himan Green, OC, a Canadian actor.His television roles include Ben Cartwright on the western Bonanza, and Commander Adama in the science fiction movie and subsequent TV Series Battlestar Galactica...

, Ted de Corsia

Ted de Corsia

Ted de Corsia was a radio and movie actor.He is probably best remembered for his role as a gangster turned state's evidence in The Enforcer...

, Ed Hinton

Ed Hinton (actor)

Edgar Latimer Hinton, Jr., known as Ed Hinton and sometimes as Edward Hinton , was an American actor known particularly for guest-starring roles on television westerns...

, and Douglass Dumbrille

Douglass Dumbrille

Douglass Dumbrille was a Canadian actor and one of the Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood.-Life and career:...

.

Possibly as a film tie-in

Tie-in

A tie-in is an authorized product based on a media property a company is releasing, such as a movie or video/DVD, computer game, video game, television program/television series, board game, web site, role-playing game or literary property...

, Johnny Horton

Johnny Horton

John Gale "Johnny" Horton was an American country music and rockabilly singer most famous for his semi-folk, so-called "saga songs" which began the "historical ballad" craze of the late 1950s and early 1960s...

 had a big success with his version of The Battle of New Orleans

The Battle of New Orleans

"The Battle of New Orleans" is the title of a song written by Jimmy Driftwood. The song describes the 1815 Battle of New Orleans from the perspective of an American soldier; the lyrics are evidently intended to be comical. It has been recorded by many artists, but the singer most often associated...

.