The film stars Robert Stack (in the title role), Marisa Pavan, Charles Coburn, Macdonald Carey, Jean-Pierre Aumont, David Farrar, Peter Cushing, Basil Sydney, and Thomas Gomez.

Jones, who in an earlier scene had expressed his hatred of the slave trade, frees the boys, who continue to work with him alongside his late brother's clerk, Peter Wooley (Tom Brannum).

Jones also retains the services of his brother's attorney, the rising politician Patrick Henry (Macdonald Carey), to assist in business matters.

With the Declaration of Independence, Jones is given his own command in a barely-existent American Continental Navy and is reunited with Scipio and Cato, who then sail with him.

When Jones goes to Valley Forge to deliver his resignation, Washington points out the desperate circumstances of his troops and persuades the sailor to go to France to help Benjamin Franklin (Charles Coburn) in enlisting the French as allies.

Jones' new love interest, Aimee de Telleson (Marisa Pavan), is a lady in waiting to Marie Antoinette (Susana Canales) and, with Franklin's help, they persuade King Louis XVI (Jean-Pierre Aumont) to build a new ship for Jones, which will fly under the American flag with the name Bonhomme Richard (the French name for Franklin's "Poor Richard").

With the end of the revolution, Jones' desire to be put in command of the American Navy is also thwarted by the lack of government funding, so he answers the call for his help from the Russian Empress Catherine the Great (Bette Davis).

In March 1939, Warner Bros. Pictures had purchased the screen rights to Clements Ripley's biographical novel about John Paul Jones, with Aeneas MacKenzie hired to write the script.

[7] In 1946, independent producer Samuel Bronston announced that he had obtained the cooperation of the U.S. Navy for the making of his own biopic of John Paul Jones.

In December 1955, Bronston announced that he had formed Admiralty Pictures Corporation, consisting of a group of New York investors, and that they had made a deal with Warner Bros. to produce their long dormant Call to Action project.

Gross, General Motors, Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Time Inc., and Eastman Kodak so that they could retrieve funds frozen from sales in Europe.

[6] In January 1956, Bronston stated that Admiral Chester Nimitz would act as his personal adviser on the film, in which production was to begin in May of that year.

Farrow initially received sole credit for writing but ultimately shared it with Lasky after he complained to the Writers Guild of America.

[22][23] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote the film was "an unexciting picture, so far as dramatic action is concerned, and utterly unexpressive of the recorded nature and character of John Paul Jones."

[24] James Powers of Variety was similarly critical, noting the film "could be shortened drastically and tightened to give it better pace and emphasis.

Powers also felt the depicted historical figures "tended to be stiff or unbelievable" because the film "doesn't get much fire-power into the characters.

[28] Despite the financial failure of John Paul Jones, Bronston continued to produce a number of historical epic films, in which he had established Spain as a major production center in filmmaking.