Yellowbeard

What a frustrating film. So close to being brilliant, so much potential…and such a terrible result. No wonder it’s been all but forgotten, but the trouble is that it’s so bad because it comes tantalisingly close to being superb so many times, and always slips, falling harder each time as a result.

It’s a great idea. A Python film about pirates – that’s what we could’ve had. A surreal swashbuckling adventure with lots of the usual subversion and memorable characters. The trouble is, too much is crammed in and none of it is given any time to actually get good. From a sound premise (the fearsome pirate Yellowbeard escapes from prison and heads for his booty, the map to which is tattooed on the head of his son, now a young man), we get a huge mess with too many situations and very few good jokes. It’s as if funny people have been thrown at the screen and are expected to just be naturally amusing. Peter Cook is the only one to actually manage this, by being a hapless aristocrat who, with extra swagger, would have been rather reminiscent of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean despite their very different roles. Oblivious people are just amusing, and Cook is very natural.

The rest is a shambles. Chapman’s Yellowbeard snarls and is about the only Pythonic thing in the movie, being grossly exaggerated in some very odd directions, but there’s nothing past that, no human side. Eric Idle is just one of his boring posh baddies (with Nigel Planer being a similarly unimaginative fall-guy), while John Cleese, in what he’s called the worst movie he’s ever done (or suchlike), does well with bad material but ultimately can’t rise above it sufficiently. Spike Milligan and James Mason may as well not have been there, and Cheech and Chong’s stupid babyish play-acting really makes the film start to stink (their prominence on the American poster is the only funny thing about them). Marty Feldman looks great and has some good moments in the role he died filming, but goes over the top a few times too many and is paired with the endlessly boring Peter Boyle. Madeline Kahn manages to squeeze out a few funny lines, and is one of the only redeemable things about the film, but her character is just another piece of driftwood in the formless detritus of this movie.