Yellowbeard

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To be perfectly fair, this isn't exactly a Tommy Chong-centric film. But both Cheech and Chong do show up here as a couple of villains, in this would-be dream of a comedy that otherwise unfortunately falls pretty flat. More on that later.

The premise centers on the viscious pirate, Yellowbeard (Graham Chapman) who has been incarcerated for tax evasion. He refuses to give up the wherabous of his hidden treasure, so the Royal Navy plots to keep him imprisoned for another 140 years, knowing that he'll manage escape. Strange that he was already in there for 20 without so easily escaping, but okay.

Anyway, Yellowbeard finds out that he has a son with one of his, shall we say, victims, Betty (Madeline Kahn), who happened to tattoo Yellowbeard's treaure map on his head when he was a baby. Now grown, son, Dan (Martin Hewitt) and Yellowbeard assemble a crew of pirates to track down the treasure, not realiing that the Royal Navy plans to follow him on this journey and seize the treasure for themselves.

Upon basic plot, it's pretty much just as ridiculous as you can imagine, with some genuine laugh out loud moments, which are unfortunately contrasted by things of poor taste, like rape jokes... of which there are an unfortunate many. Perhaps it flew better in '83, but I recall rolling my eyes at the whole deal. It's an odd combination of comedy. It's almost like best of Python, Brooks and Cheech & Chong meets the respective worst of each. For every laugh, there's a solid cringe.

Added to the cast are some more great names in comedy like Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Peter Cook (who co-wrote this with Champan), Eric Idle, John Cleese and Kennith Mars. It really is an impressive cast, especially speaking as a fan of a lot of classic comedy such as these names are associated with.

All in all, this one's low-ranked, but in it's own way it's a bit of a hidden gem, if only when it comes to all of the names involved in making this happen. The comedy and situations get pretty tedious at times, but as I mentioned before there are still some solid laugh out loud moments, and I'd definitely say that it's at least worth checking out if you're a Brooks/Python/Cheech and Chong fan. Mostly keeping the first two in mind, as for Cheech and Chong, this isn't their brand of stoner comedy people know and love them for.

​3/5

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