SIMON MATTHEWS watches Mel Damski’s 1983 film Yellowbeard.
Had you been dining in Trader Vic’s at the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, one night in July 1978, you might have spotted a quartet of men, three drinking heavily, in animated conversation. Most would have recognized Keith Moon, drummer with the Who, and quickly noted Peter Cook and Graham Chapman, both familiar from television. The fourth was US director Sam Peckinpah.
Chapman, the only one not drinking, had just completed filming The Odd Job and would shortly proceed to north Africa to make Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Peckinpah, an alcoholic and drug addict, had been clicking his heels since being sacked by EMI from Convoy a few months earlier. Fellow alcoholic Cook had just had the worst reviews of his career for The Hound of the Baskervilles (which remains unwatchable) and was about to record a fourth album Derek and Clive Ad Nauseam with long-term sidekick Dudley Moore. When they did so, Cook’s behaviour was so impossible that Moore walked out, never to return. Moon, the third alcoholic, had just completed work on the Who’s latest album, Who Are You?, despite struggling with his playing and a suggestion that he was about to be fired from the band.
The dinner at Trader Vic’s was a repeat of similar gatherings in Los Angeles where Chapman, Moon and Peckinpah maintained homes. Moon fancied himself as a comic actor and liked to think he could play Long John Silver. So much so that he funded development of a pirate film, which Chapman began writing in 1976. There was hope that George Harrison would agree to produce it via Hand Made Films (who were making Life of Brian) and two leading roles were created, Yellowbeard and Moon. The latter, for which Moon did a screen test, would have been played by him.
The four abruptly became three when Moon, who was staying at Harry Nilsson’s flat in Curzon Place, Mayfair, died on 7 September 1978. Despite this, they clearly felt this was something worth pursuing and Chapman continued work on a script, eventually bringing in Cook to help. It turned out Hand Made weren’t able to produce, but Hemdale Films, formerly UK-based but now in Hollywood, were prepared to put in some money. Orion Pictures, who had co-financing arrangements with EMI agreed to distribute. (They had done so for Life of Brian, which made back five times its cost). This shifted the film’s centre of gravity to the US. Orion insisted on dropping Peckinpah, despite the box office success of Convoy, and hired Mel Damski who had never made a feature film as director. Finally, Carter De Haven was assigned to produce it, with an instruction to include actors who would appeal to American audiences.
By this point the prospects of Yellowbeard being the next Python film – a serious possibility at some point – had ended when Terry Jones and Michael Palin both turned down parts in the film. Chapman and Cook were confirmed as Yellowbeard and the foppish Lord Lambourn and Peter Boyle took over as Moon. Bumbling hippie comedians Cheech and Chong were given substantial roles and the part of romantic lead was assigned to Adam Ant, then enjoying considerable US sales with his album Kings of the Wild Frontier. Delays in starting the film meant he dropped out, to promote his follow-up record Friend or Foe, and although Sting was mooted as a replacement, De Carter Haven and Orion wouldn’t wear it (he was ‘too British’) and opted for Martin Hewitt, US co-star of the critically panned, but commercially successful, Endless Love.
The rest of the cast fell into place without too many issues. Eric Idle and John Cleese from the Python team, Marty Feldman, Spike Milligan and – in a nod to the new comedy talent emerging in the UK – Nigel Planer. Michael Hordern, James Mason and Susannah York in significant character parts, and to help sell it in the US market, Madeline Kahn and Kenneth Mars.
Filming began in Rye, Sussex (where Spike Milligan lived), after which the cast and crew shipped out to Mexico to film on location. Here Chapman and Idle, whilst shooting a beach scene, bumped into David Bowie who was on holiday after completing Let’s Dance. He was immediately given an uncredited cameo role – which lasts about 30 seconds, with three lines of dialogue – which he accepted stating how much he’d always wanted to work with the Python’s. (Presumably he also wanted to hitch a ride on their popularity in the US to boost sales of his album.)
Chapman was hopeful of getting his friend Harry Nilsson, who hadn’t done any recording for three years at that point, to do the film’s music, and indeed Nilsson turned up on set in Mexico, where he hired a mariachi band to follow him around all day, to publicize his availability. As with Keith Moon, the producers thought this too much of a long-shot. Instead, film composer John Morris, who worked with Mel Brooks, was hired and provided a parody of swashbuckling films from the 1940s and ’50s. Having lost control of the director, cast and music, Chapman was then further excluded by not being allowed to assist with the editing, with his comments on the cutting and flow of the film ignored.
As an indication of the level of success expected by Orion and Haven, the filming of Yellowbeard was the subject of a 45-minute documentary, Group Madness: The Making of Yellowbeard, co-directed by Philip Schumann who had done similar in 1981 with The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Group Madness was broadcast on NBC on 11 June 1983, just prior to Saturday Night Live and is actually rather good, showing the cast both in and out of character. Bowie appears (in a longer clip than seen in the film) and we hear a rough recording of Nilsson’s proposed title theme Men at Sea.
After this trailing, Yellowbeard was steered into cinemas a fortnight later, to tepid reviews. It was noted for being Marty Feldman’s last film – he died on 2 December 1982, whilst filming in Mexico – and his performance was fine, given the circumstances, but the film was an expensive flop and lost money. An odd hybrid, it came across as an uneasy combination of a Mel Brooks-type romp, with all the associated crudity, and an extended Python sketch. Had it been, say, 25 minutes long, it might have been remembered with fondness. As it is, both the trailer and Group Madness are considerably better.
In many ways, Feldman’s passing was yet another confirmation that the era of free-wheeling 1960s comedy was over. As originally envisaged, Yellowbeard would have been something like The Magic Christian (1969), The Bed Sitting Room (1969) and The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970). Instead, it stands as an example of how British creativity was obliged to conform with US box office requirements once the UK government cut funding for its domestic film industry post-1979.
The idea was good, though. In the early 1990s Walt Disney began developing Pirates of the Caribbean, a franchise that ran from 2003 to 2017 and accumulated takings of $4.5 billion. With its hybrid UK-US cast, numerous gust stars (including rock musicians), this, surely, was closer to Keith Moon’s original vision.
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