I began to write this movie around 1976. I always loved Gilbert & Sullivan. Especially The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance. I thought the latter might make a good movie and I went on location around Penzance scouting St. Michael’s Mount and various beautiful locations, and then I wrote the screenplay for the locations I had found. As you see I was foolish enough to have the opening scenes printed in Victorian handwriting. Good luck there with Hollywood! Jim Beach tried for many years but we were never able to raise the funds. It was indeed a very eccentric looking script. With many fine pre-Raphaelite paintings to show the kind of look I wanted.
We went up to visit Ken Russell at his home in the Lake District and interested him in directing. I wanted Michael Caine for the Major General and Bette Midler as Ruth. But we still couldn’t find the funds.
When we had almost given up we had a late surge of interest. Joseph Papp had a famous production in the Park in New York, with Kevin Klein and Linda Ronstadt. Ed Pressman picked up my rights and then eventually ditched us for the Papp team, which was a pity as they were forced to film their version on a Studio Film Stage in London, wherein it lost all it’s original charm and became a huge flop.
For best effect reading this you might want to play a recording of The Pirates of Penzance Overture while reading the “silent film” just after the fake opening.
Oh and Dr. Roy Strong was far from flattered to be invited to appear and turned down his big screen chance….
I was anxious to open the film on the 100th anniversary of the play’s first performance in New York, though as you see there was a brief performance in Paignton to establish copyright before the whole company shipped to America. They wished to avoid repeating the experience of five Pinafores on Broadway, none of them paying royalties.
The movie proper starts inside a Victorian Theater in London with a huge coal-fired steam driven projector. But after we establish the Victorian cinema filled with Victorian celebrities, and we see shots of Victorian London, and the plot is established as a silent movie then the red plush curtain rises and we are into a full reality shot of a Pirate ship under full sail.
And so on….
For the ending of the movie I lifted another song from Pinafore, which I felt was a much better song.
For the big finale I shot the British army marching down the Mall at The Trooping of the Color. We got magnificent footage for virtually nothing. Of course I couldn’t shoot any film of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and they both watched me, a long haired hippy, running around on the Victoria monument, totally ignoring them and shooting only the soldiers and horses at their big show. They both sat on their horses staring at me. They simply couldn’t understand why I was ignoring them! I sort of smiled and shrugged. What could I say? Thanks for the use of your army?
