& Gerard Brach
Malta & Tunisia 1986
photographed by Witold Sobocinski
with Walter Matthau, Chris Campion,
Damien Thomas, Olu Jacobs,
Charlotte Lewis & Ferdy Mayne
I’m not sure when Polanski first came up with the idea for this movie, but it probably began when he was a kid sneaking out of the Krakow Ghetto to go to the cinema to watch a pirate movie from Hollywood alongside Nazis, their collaborators and all the other Goyum. As many have noted, it owes more than a little to Polanski’s prize winning early short, Two Men and a Wardrobe. It also recalls Siodmak’s the Crimson Pirate. (One might note that Matthau’s character is called Captain Red.) At one point it was to be Polanski’s next film after Chinatown, with Jack Nicholson as Red and Polanski as Frog, but the producers wouldn’t meet Jack’s asking price, so it fell through. It is often cited as Polanski’s worst film. I think not. While Matthau is not a fair substitute for Nicholson, as Roman was by then too old for the male ingénue role, Chris Campion makes a delectable alternative and Charlotte Lewis is poignant as María-Dolores (no doubt making use of her own experiences as an adolescent model and call girl in London three years prior to her relationship with Polanski.) It’s especially nice to see Ferdy Mayne in another Polanski film after his brilliant performance as Count von Krolock in the Fearless Vampire Killers, and Damien Thomas is perfectly cast, well turned out, and extremely photogenic as well, as Don Alfonso de la Torré.
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