The Pirate Movie
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| The Pirate Movie | |
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 The Pirate Movie film poster |
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| Directed by | Ken Annakin |
| Produced by | Ted Hamilton (executive) David Joseph |
| Written by | W. S. Gilbert (operetta) Trevor Farrant |
| Starring | Christopher Atkins Kristy McNichol Ted Hamilton |
| Music by | Mike Brady Terry Britten (songs) Sue Shifrin (songs) Peter Sullivan |
| Cinematography | Robin Copping |
| Editing by | Ken Zemke |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | August 6, 1982 |
| Running time | 105 min./USA: 98 min. |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $5,000,000 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Pirate Movie is a 1982 musical and comedy film directed by Ken Annakin and starring Christopher Atkins and Kristy McNichol. The film is loosely based on Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance. The original music score is composed by Mike Brady and Peter Sullivan.
Taglines:
- Set Sail for the Musical Comedy Adventure of the Summer!
- Yar! Buckle your swash and Jolly your Roger for the funniest rock 'n' rollickin' adventure ever!
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[edit] Plot summary
Mabel Stanley, an introverted girl who yearns for popularity attends a pirate festival in her seaside community in Australia along with about a dozen bikini-clad bombshells. The festival features a swordplay demonstration led by a curly haired hunk. After selecting the clumsy Mabel ("nominated" by one of the aforementioned bombshells) to participate in the act, the instructor invites her aboard his boat for a real ride on the high seas — at which point her catty acquaintances latch on for the trip. Sent to get hamburgers for the outing, Mabel's bikini-clad "friends" sabotage the outing by grabbing the guy, the boat and the burgers and sail off without her.
Intent on catching up and joining her "friends" and dream guy, Mabel rents a small sail boat (not intended for open ocean use) armed with only her trusty portable stereo and is thrown overboard in a sudden storm, washing up on a beach.
Thus begins a fantasy in which the unconscious Mabel imagines herself in a real pirate adventure, complete with a dashing (and very familiar-looking curly haired) pirate, a pirate king with a bejeweled codpiece, a legion of his crusty shipmates, and dozens of unwed sisters who must rise to the altar before she can. In the film's ending, Mabel wakes up and gets rescued by the instructor, who assures her that he is not who she imagines him to be.
[edit] Main cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Christopher Atkins | Frederic |
| Kristy McNichol | Mabel Stanley |
| Ted Hamilton | The Pirate King |
| Bill Kerr | Major-General |
| Maggie Kirkpatrick | Ruth |
| Garry McDonald | Sergeant/Inspector |
[edit] Historical note
The movie was made soon after the 1980 New York City Central Park and 1981 Broadway theatre production of The Pirates of Penzance produced by Joseph Papp re-popularized swashbuckling pirates.
[edit] eBay trivia
Because Columbia House seemed to have exclusive rights to distribute The Pirate Movie on VHS, New and even used copies would sell for around $30 to $40 on eBay in the days before the Anchor Bay DVD was announced. Even though the movie could be purchased for around $10 from Columbia House, there was a steady niche market of people willing to pay a premium for the hard-to-find title.
The soundtrack for The Pirate Movie was one of the most bootlegged titles on eBay in the mid to late 90s. CD-R's were blatantly listed in auctions, and soon removed by eBay staffers. Some made it through; some sellers sold copies of the vinyl with free CD-R "backups" as bonus gifts. Some of these auctions were close to $100. The soundtrack has still never been re-issued on CD and Vinyl and Cassette copies continue to circulate the net.
Several versions of varying quality have surfaced on P2P networks. The most common one is distinguishable by the a buzzing or humming sound (most likely caused by the presence of a poorly grounded cable-TV connection in a home-theater system that the turntable was a part of). One of the other common versions uses dubs from the film (obvious because of the sound effects and dialogue heard in certain songs) and combined those with songs that were dubbed poorly from a crackly vinyl copy.
Vinyl copies of the soundtrack still sell for $10-$20 on eBay, and bootleg CDs continue to appear, some advertised as "limited edition".
[edit] Awards and nominations
- Nominated: Best Achievement in Costume Design (Aphrodite Kondos)
- Nominated: Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Garry McDonald)
- Won: Worst Musical Score
- Won: Worst Director (Ken Annakin)
- Won: Worst "Original" Song (Pumpin' and Blowin')
- Nominated: Worst Picture
- Nominated: Worst Screenplay
- Nominated: Worst Actor (Christopher Atkins)
- Nominated: Worst Actress (Kristy McNichol)
- Nominated: Worst Supporting Actor (Ted Hamilton)
- Nominated: Worst "Original" Song (Happy Endings)
[edit] Locations
[edit] External links
- The Pirate Movie at the Internet Movie Database
- The Pirate Movie at All Movie Guide
- The Pirate Movie at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Pirate Movie at The Gilbert & Sullivan Discography
 Cinema of Australia |
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Film chronology: 1890s-1930s • 1940s-1970s • 1980s • 1990s • 2000s |
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