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The Fat and the Lean and Knife in the Water are at once indicated, Walter Matthau slouching on a raft adrift is W.C. Fields by way of Robert Newton, also Mack Swain famished in The Gold Rush. Black-bearded, pet-legged, Cockney-throated, the scraggly pirate among sharks with his sprightly French sidekick (Cris Campion). "Man fights for what he likes the most," for one it's the golden throne from the Americas, for the other it's the angelic Spanish maiden (Charlotte Lewis), the one soft voice in the grungy chorus. (As her cruel suitor, Damien Thomas is dandified, peruked, and El Greco-elongated.) Changes of fortune, "divine providence," down in the galleon's galley and up in the royal tower. "Ya son o' a double-dyed whore from the reekin' gutters o' Rotterdam! A plague on yer scurvy head!" Following the rich lyricism of Tess, back to the rich cheekiness of The Fearless Vampire Killers for Roman Polanski. The joke is largely in the blur of romanticism and grimness, in the contrast between the opulence of the framing and the grottiness of what's being framed. Roy Kinnear in his bathtub might be Marat by one of the Old Masters, in ambles the captain to piss in the water. The rodent in the soup that triggers a mutiny goes from The Battleship Potemkin to Desperate Living, the ancient aristocrat (Ferdy Mayne) languishes in a Velasquez chamber as a cannon-sized vinegar enema is introduced. The critical reception is perhaps anticipated in Polanski's best gag—Matthau and Campion perched atop a fantastically large set of chains, stone-faced as their dinghy sails away. "I fear we have no vanilla." Skolimowski in The Lightship offers a curious parallel. With Olu Jacobs, Bill Fraser, David Kelly, and Sydney Bromley.
--- Fernando F. Croce |