It stars Judy Garland and Gene Kelly with costars Walter Slezak, Gladys Cooper, Reginald Owen, The Nicholas Brothers, and George Zucco, with music by Cole Porter.

Manuela Alva, who lives in the small Caribbean village of Calvados, dreams of being swept away by the legendary Pirate, Mack "the Black" Macoco.

On the night of his hanging, Manuela finally gets to look at the false evidence, and recognizes a bracelet with the same design as the wedding ring that Don Pedro gave her, and realizes that he is the pirate.

Vincente Minnelli directed the film, from a screenplay based on the 1942 Broadway play by S. N. Behrman, which had starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.

While the Lunts themselves expressed interest in bringing the story to the screen, MGM envisioned the project as a comedy for William Powell and either Myrna Loy or Hedy Lamarr.

Garland was then at the top of her box-office stature in Hollywood, and Minnelli was the logical choice as director, as he had successfully helmed most of her recent movies (Meet Me in St. Louis, Ziegfeld Follies, and The Clock).

Garland was eager to demonstrate her talents as a sophisticated leading comedienne in the same class as Katharine Hepburn, and MGM saw a perfect opportunity to reunite her with Gene Kelly, her co-star in the hit 1942 musical For Me and My Gal.

Kelly was newly returned from his navy service in World War II and an Academy Award nominee for Best Actor for Anchors Aweigh.

Freed engaged legendary composer Cole Porter to write the score for a $100,000 fee, and entrusted Anita Loos and Joseph Than with the film's scenario.

Producer Freed immediately replaced Loos and Than with the great husband and wife writing team of Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich.

The creative personnel assigned to the film comprised a solid crew from the Freed Unit at MGM: choreographer Robert Alton, conductor Lennie Hayton, orchestrator Conrad Salinger, and vocal arranger Kay Thompson.

His inspirations for the character of Serafin were his boyhood cinema heroes: the swashbuckling athleticism of Douglas Fairbanks and the hammy flamboyance of John Barrymore.

An aspiring film director, Kelly also worked closely with Minnelli during the shoot to learn the technical end of filmmaking behind the camera.

Minnelli and Kelly established a collaborative working relationship at this time, which reached its zenith a few years later with their most successful film as director/star, An American in Paris.

Everyone involved in the film's production possessed exemplary credentials: Walter Slezak and Gladys Cooper were cast, respectively, as Don Pedro and Manuela's Aunt Inez; supporting roles were filled with veteran players Reginald Owen, George Zucco, Ben Lessy, and the Nicholas Brothers.

Unhappy with Kay Thompson's cacophonous arrangement of the opening number, "Mack the Black", Freed ordered the song re-recorded.

For Kelly's number Nina, a plaza in the town of Calvados was built on a soundstage at MGM, with a pavilion in the middle and the streets unevenly paved with cobblestones for realistic effect.

Years of overwork at MGM, postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter Liza Minnelli nine months earlier, and a heavy reliance on prescription medication finally caught up with the twenty-five-year-old star, and she often failed to show up on time for work, if at all.

Despite her initial enthusiasm to play a character outside her usual winsome all-American roles, Garland "began to feel adrift in the imaginative self-indulgence that suddenly surrounded her on the set of The Pirate.

The crew and her co-workers were sympathetic to Garland's travails, testifying that she was not a temperamental star but an overworked young woman struggling with health and addiction issues.

But on her last full day of filming, Garland did retakes and pickups on the "Be a Clown" finale and five other scenes, changing wardrobe, hairstyle, and makeup at least three times for more than twenty-five takes.

The British author David Shipman, in his book The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years, described it as being "a neat moneymaker, but otherwise probably the least successful of Garland's MGM films.

"[5] The New York Times offered, "The Pirate, which came yesterday to the Radio City Music Hall, is a dazzling, spectacular extravaganza, shot through with all the colors of the rainbow and then some that Technicolor patented.

But with Gene Kelly hoofing like a dervish, Judy Garland changing character at the drop of a hat, and resplendent trappings, the show is bouncing and beautiful."

Star Gene Kelly told writer Tony Thomas in 1974, "I had decided on this Fairbanks-Barrymore approach to the role at the very start and Minnelli entirely agreed with it.

But Garland's therapist felt it was unwise to have her husband direct her in another film so soon after The Pirate, so Minnelli was removed as director by Arthur Freed and replaced by Charles Walters.

When released in July 1948, Easter Parade was a smash-hit, breaking box-office records and putting Garland, Astaire, and everyone involved on a new level of success.

In 2002, Rhino Handmade/Turner Classic Movies Music released the complete Oscar-nominated score on compact disc, remastered and restored with rare outtakes and rehearsal demos.

High-Def Digest wrote in their review, "A brand new 4K restoration from Warner Archive yields an absolutely glorious 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 transfer that's distinguished by crystal clarity, superior contrast, perfectly balanced color, and beautifully resolved grain that lends the picture a lovely film-like feel."