Review of Yellowbeard (1983) by Stuart K — 30 Dec 2009

Before his untimely death in 1989, Graham Chapman was the only Python who never quite achieved fame on his own away from the comedy troupe. Though he did have a stab at breaking into America with this, a hotch-potch, all-star comedy based on an idea by Keith Moon.

:O It looks well shot, and the set design is well done, and it does have a good cast. But that's it, the comedy, what little there is of it, falls flat on it's face. Pity really. It begins with the vicious pirate Yellowbeard (Chapman) being jailed for 20 years for tax evasion, but he won't tell the authorities were he buried his treasure.

So, Commander Clement (Eric Idle) sentences him to 140 years. Yellowbeard escapes and is told by his wife Betty (Madeline Kahn) that she destroyed the map leading to his treasure, but she tattooed it on the head of his son Dan (Martin Hewitt).

So Yellowbeard ends up with Lord Lambourn (Peter Cook) and Dr Gilpin (Michael Hordern) stowed away on a ship going for the treasure. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but alot of it doesn't work at all, it faced production problems from the word go and the comedy, (alot of it using the r-word and one disturbing sight of Beryl Reid's cleavage is their idea of comedy.

) But, the cast presence try to make up for it, including John Cleese, James Mason, Peter Boyle, Cheech and Chong, Spike Milligan, Nigel Planer, David Bowie and Marty Feldman in his last role. It could have been much better.