The movie is “The Buccaneer” starring Yul Brenner and Charlton Heston, their first movie together after The Ten Commandments. And one of the only movies made about the Battle of New Orleans.
The question is here: How can I find this movie to watch? Obviously Amazon doesn’t have the DVD. How would I find if this movie ever made it off of film and onto tape for tv, or some other medium.
Any ideas?
Looks like you’re stuck with getting it on VHS if you want a legit copy.
According to one of my older Videohound movie guides, a few distributors have released it on VHS in the US-- Barr Films, Facets Multimedia, Paramount, Rex Miller. Facets distributed to cineastes and Paramount is well-known, but the other two companies sound like tiny garage companies that probably didn’t license the film. A lot of companies in the 1980s existed to market films that someone found in storage and projected onto a bedsheet.
Facets lists the movie as “no longer available” but suggests calling their rentals department (1-800-532-2387) to see if it is available for rent.
eBay lists several copies on VHS (searching “The Buccaneers” VHS). Amazon.com has a few sellers with used copies on VHS; if you take these routes, it would be worthwhile to doublecheck with sellers that the version for sale is from a good source (Facets or Paramount).
It might also be worthwhile to check with your local library; interlibrary loan can turn up some hard-to-find movies.
Now, DVD copies do exist (and one is even listed here on Amazon as used), but these appear to be pirated off of VHS. A basic Google search will turn up folks selling DVD-Rs or Hong Kong bootlegs at a fairly low price; YESASIA.com has the Castaways DVD (Castaways is a Hong Kong company that does a lot of low-quality “grey market” stuff, usually copied from VHS). I’m not too fond of this route, especially when legit VHS is available used and will probably look better than a crappy compressed DVD copy.
Finally, I noticed there’s a torrent of a VHS rip floating around.
Tell me about it. For years I’ve been looking for “The Last Polka” to go DVD, but all I have is a lousy VHS copy off HBO or something.
Q