Captain William Kidd became more famous than many of the pirates who sailed during the Golden Age of Piracy because his story had almost everything needed to create a lasting legend.
A Scottish sea captain who became a successful privateer, Kidd was eventually accused of piracy and murder, sent back to England for trial and publicly hanged at Execution Dock in London on 23 May 1701.
Then there was the treasure. Kidd really did bury valuables on Gardiners Island, near Long Island, before his arrest, and the authorities recovered them. That fact helped fuel stories that a much greater fortune remained hidden somewhere, waiting to be discovered.
His sensational trial and execution kept his name alive, while later writers increasingly turned Kidd into the sort of ruthless pirate captain we recognise from fiction.
By the time cinema arrived, Captain Kidd was already a ready-made screen character whose name suggested piracy, buried gold, treasure maps and the gallows.
Here are seven films and serials that helped turn the real Captain Kidd into a screen legend.
Captain Kidd (1913)
One of the earliest attempts to put Kidd’s life on screen came from Universal in this three-reel silent film directed by Otis Turner. David M. Hartford played Kidd in a story that followed the famous captain from his turn to piracy through to his eventual downfall.
At around half an hour, it was considerably more ambitious than many films being made at the time. More than anything, it demonstrates how quickly the new medium of cinema seized upon a pirate whose legend was already more than 200 years old.
Captain Kidd’s Finish (1921)
This silent short directed by Robert F. Hill is one of the more obscure appearances of the Captain Kidd legend on screen. Produced by Universal, it starred Mack V. Wright and Lillian Biron and appeared at a time when pirate stories and tales of Kidd’s treasure were already familiar to cinema audiences.
Very little readily accessible information about its story survives today, making the film something of a mystery itself. Its existence nevertheless shows how readily early filmmakers could use the Captain Kidd name and expect audiences to understand what it promised.
Captain Kidd (1922)
Despite its title, this 15-chapter silent serial was not a conventional biography of William Kidd. Eddie Polo starred as Edward Davis in an adventure built around pirates, hidden treasure and a lost fortune, with audiences returning to cinemas each week for the next instalment.
The chapters carried irresistible titles including Shanghaied, The Pirate’s Slave, Hidden Treasure and A Fight for a Fortune. The complete serial is considered lost, although several individual chapters are known to survive in film archives.
Captain Kidd (1945)
Charles Laughton stars as Captain Kidd in probably the best-known screen treatment of the pirate’s story. Kidd poses as a respectable captain and persuades King William III to allow him to escort a valuable treasure ship, while secretly pursuing his own murderous plans.
Laughton plays him as a magnificently treacherous villain rather than attempting anything close to a sympathetic historical portrait. The film’s score by Werner Janssen received an Academy Award nomination, while Laughton’s performance proved memorable enough for him to play Kidd again seven years later.
Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952)
Charles Laughton returned as Kidd, but this time found himself opposite comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. The pair become mixed up with Kidd and a treasure map, resulting in a broad comic send-up of the pirate adventures Hollywood had spent decades producing.
Laughton effectively parodies the larger-than-life Captain Kidd he had played in 1945. Intriguingly, Laughton reportedly said he took the role because he wanted to learn the art of the double take from Costello.
The Great Adventures of Captain Kidd (1953)
This 15-chapter Columbia serial took a rather different approach to Kidd. John Crawford plays the captain, while Richard Crane and David Bruce are undercover agents sent to investigate him and discover that Kidd may not be quite the villain they expected.
The story plays with the possibility that the historical Kidd was unfairly condemned, making it an interesting contrast with Laughton’s thoroughly wicked interpretation. Released when the great era of cinema serials was almost over, The Great Adventures of Captain Kidd was Columbia’s final costume serial.
Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl (1954)
Anthony Dexter takes over the role of Kidd in this adventure directed by Lew Landers, with Eva Gabor playing Judith Duvall. Kidd is saved from the gallows by the Earl of Bellomont, who wants to discover the whereabouts of his hidden treasure.
The film throws historical pirates including Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Calico Jack and Henry Every into the adventure, so historical accuracy is clearly not the main concern. By this point, Hollywood’s Captain Kidd had become almost completely inseparable from buried treasure and swashbuckling adventure.
Captain Kidd died at London’s Execution Dock in 1701, but popular culture gave him a much longer life. The discovery of his buried treasure helped create a mystery that survived long after the circumstances of his actual career had been forgotten, while books, plays and eventually films transformed a complicated privateer into one of history’s archetypal pirates.
The screen versions tell us almost as much about our changing idea of pirates as they do about Kidd himself.
Early filmmakers used his name to promise treasure and adventure, Charles Laughton turned him into a magnificent villain, and later productions even began asking whether history had treated the real William Kidd fairly.
More than three centuries after his execution, that question remains part of the fascination.
Was Captain Kidd really one of history’s great pirates, or simply a privateer whose story became much bigger and bloodier after his death?
