After a young man leaves a band of pirates, hilarity ensues. This movie is an adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operetta of the same name, with parts of other of their operettas stirred in. Frederic (Rex Smith) has fallen in love with sweet innocent Mabel Stanley (Linda Ronstadt). Yet his vocation is an impediment to their union. Perhaps the situation can be rectified by his old nurse, Ruth (Dame Angela Lansbury), who made a dreadful blunder years before. A highlight is the song and dance, "A Policeman's Lot is Not a Happy One". —Reid Gagle Fredric (Rex Smith) was meant to be an apprentice to a pilot, but his maid mistakenly makes him an apprentice to a pirate. He is ready to leave the Pirates of Penzance. When his maid pleads him to take her with him, he agrees, but shortly afterward, he meets the daughters of Major General Stanley (George Rose) and falls madly in love with them, so he rejects his maid Ruth (Dame Angela Lansbury). After they say no to loving him, for he was a pirate, the fairest of them all, Mabel Stanley (Linda Ronstadt) agrees to love him. But something stirs up in the story and he and his sense of duty as a pirate are stuck in the middle. —???? Frederic (Rex Smith), son of a wealthy nineteenth century man was to be apprenticed to a pilot, but due to a hard-of-hearing nursery maid, was instead apprenticed to a pirate. Not just any pirate, but the Pirate King (Kevin Kline), leader of the not-so-fierce "Pirates of Penzance". But now his indentures are over, Frederic's sense of duty calls him to rid the seas of these rather simple ruffians. Despite their track record, the pirates believe that they have an ace up their collective sleeves. —Murray Chapman <muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au>
Read more →
