The final leg of my assessment of the lesser Polanskis (and “leg” seems apt, as we were only assessing two) is up at The Auteurs’. It’s the Foreign Region DVD Report on ’86s Pirates, which, while not exactly good, is not quite as bad as I recalled.
Hey, anybody know the identity of the cigar-smoking geezer on the right? Hint: there’s a biopic of him coming out early next year.
Found this online not too long ago (not the best resolution but at least it was in widescreen), I thought it was a pretty good time. Surely it’s better than Cutthroat Island? And Walter Matthau has to be given some credit for pushing his typical cantankerous slob persona in this direction. It’s a pretty juicy performance (the elastic accent notwithstanding), and one I’d rate higher than whatever the hell people were going so crazy over with Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean.
The cigar-smoking geezer on the right Ian Dury. Andy Serkis will play him in the aforementioned biopic titled ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’.
The only thing I remember about this film is Matthau eating rats. That must be worth something.
The rat-eating is part of Polanski’s longtime fascination with Chaplin’s shoe-eating scene in The Gold Rush, cited directly in Repulsion.
Hoping for a Dury revival on the back of the film, too many kids today never heard of him.
Likewise, the starving Red trying to eat his mate cites the Gold Rush scene where Charlie morphs into a chicken.
I must have watched my old full-screen copy of this half a dozen times. I always end up frustrated, but assume that’s at least part of what Polanski was going for.