Murky, bad color and in really bad shape. Scratches and splices abound, "matey"! Argh! A throwback to "Africa Screams" which is also public domain and a far funnier movie. Like "Jack and the Beanstalk" you wish a better copy existed. The routines seem tired; you've seen them all before. Instead of buckshot in the eggs, there's soap bubbles in the soup! Here's the plot in one sentence: Lou has the treasure map and they all sail off to Skull Island to dig up the bounty. Too much bad stock footage and poor "color-timing" (matching) in the ship-to-ship battles. Clumsily staged action scenes and the worst songs ever. Charles Laughton has a great time. He outshines "the boys" in an otherwise predictable movie with the old "it's the wrong box" gimmick. (The treasure map and love note are in identical wooden tubes.) The tall, blonde, tomboyish pirate falls in love with Lou. Costello plays Capt. Kidd surprisingly well; he strips poor Kidd down to his underwear and impersonates him, in full uniform. Lou becomes the new pirate captain, and poor Capt. Kidd gets hung upside down from the yard-arm. They all sail away, happily singing, into the sunset. This is one of those "it should have been better" movies. WB distributed both "Capt. Kidd" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" at the theaters. Too bad they can't find better copies and re-release them on Blu-Ray. The public domain copies are "junk."
