I’ve written it once, I’ll write it again – some of the best comedies you’ll ever watch are low budget flicks that are not supposed to be funny, but instead are so bad they are hilarious. It’s interesting to me how often film makers try to make a comedy and so often fail. They might want to try this tack. Speaking of tack, this was a pirate movie! Released in 1983, this was an early film starring Tommy Lee Jones. In fact, with long hair and a beard, he looked more like a caveman than a pirate. He played pirate Bully Hayes. And who is Nate? You guessed it – Noonan! NOONAN (aka Michael O’Keefe)!!! Man, Noonan had some classic misses in this one – some of his acting and lines induced bouts of laughter. Smaller parts were played by Jenny Seagrove (who? That’s what I thought) as Sophie, Noonan’s wife and also enamored by Bully. The antagonist pirate was played by Max Phipps, another “who’s that guy?”
Much of the hilarity in this one was due to the many ridiculous scenes, terrible dialog, laughable fights and best of all, the mistakes. Too many to mention but just a few gems – at one point Noonan was marooned in the middle of the ocean on a rock – believe it or not it was even more ludicrous than it reads. He took off after his wife was kidnapped on a raft that looked like Tom Hanks built it to escape his island on Castaway. Yet when it hit the rock in the middle of the ocean, it was suddenly propelled like it had a 100 horsepower motor (it probably did!). Anywho, when Noonan first embarked on this ludicrous craft, he was wearing a bandana that looked like a prop from The Karate Kid – where did it come from? But it got better: it started out 2 inches wide, but then in the next scene, it was 4 inches wide. What in the HAIL?? Later, they jumped off their sailboat before it got blowed up by a German ironclad (the rivets and iron plating were so fake it was silly), and as they swam towards shore, you could clearly see a modern house on the hilltop – hey nice view of the ocean, New Zealander! At the very end, they had to to zip line to safety to escape the Spaniards – and as they slid down towards a shack in the ocean, it was painfully obvious they used three department store mannequins dressed similarly to the characters – you’ll fall out of your chair laughing.
The costumes were another constant source of amusement – at one point Sophie was wearing what looked like a high school cheerleader outfit. And Jiminy Christmas, why was Bully’s right hand man dressed like an Amtrak conductor – hat and everything! Did they just pull a costume off the rack that fit him and said, “that’ll do!”. Kee-riste almighty did he look ridiculous! And get a load out of Noonan’s 1980s quaffed hairdo. Yes this movie was made in the early 1980s but come on, man! I guess they couldn’t pay Noonan enough to get his hair cut to an appropriate 19th style.
So if you are in the mood for some serious laughing, look no further than this one! Seven yo ho ho’s and a bottle of rum out of eleven (strictly for the comedy).