Yellowbeard is an obscure British comedy and, despite the all-star comedic talent (the Monty Python fellows, the odd casting of Cheech & Chong, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, and more), it isn't really a movie that can hold you for very long, or keep you laughing throughout (especially the ending where the filmmakers just seemed to run out of ideas).
Yellowbeard, played by late Monty Python actor Graham Chapman, is a notorious pirate that has long kept secret the whereabouts of his famed treasure. Commander Clement (Eric Idle) suggests that Yellowbeards scentence be increased on the very day he was to be released (explaining to Yellowbeard that this is to occur because judges didn't know he would out live his original scentence of twenty years), then Yellowbeard will be encouraged to escape and try to go and seek out his buried treasure.
The map to the treasure was discarded by Yellowbeard's wife (Madeline Kahn) who remembered to make a copy on her son Dan's head (Martin Hewitt). One of Yellowbeard's fellow prison mates (Marty Feldman) and one of his fellow shipmates (Peter Boyle...you can see you have nearly the whole cast of 'Young Frankenstein') hijack a ship and trick Dan and his fellow mates to join the navy. By making Dan captian of the ship, they're hoping he will navigate the boat to the island where the treasure is hidden. Everyone wants their hands on Yellowbeard's treasure, including the leader and monk of the island where it is hidden (Tommy Chong doing his worst as the leader with a lisp, El Nebuloso) and Cheech Marin (not doing too bad in a stupid part) as the French monk, El Segundo, who want to also capture Yellowbeard and his son and their friends. Basically, everyone is after that treasure. It is just a matter of who gets hold of it first.
The jokes are pretty funny, particularly towards the beginning and middle of the movie, but once Dan and his mates join the Navy and go aboard the ship where a majority of the movie later takes place, the pace of the movie really starts to slow down and the story becomes much less interesting (though the scenes with Eric Idle as Commander Clements are still some of my favorite). The finale of the movie, if you haven't lost interest by that point, is pretty disappointing, if not altogether stupid.
If you really like period stupid comedies, I would recommend watching Eric the Viking or Time Bandits or even The Adventures of Baron Munchausen instead. Yellowbeard, despite all of it's fantastic talent and a couple of great jokes, really needed something more in the plot to keep it going. The story at some points just seems to be all over the place and instead, is more concerned with throwing in jokes here and there (the pitfall of the stupid comedy genre usually is when the filmmakers lose sight of any semblence of a plot, if any, on many occassions throughout the movie). It's just not all that it could be.
Yellowbeard, played by late Monty Python actor Graham Chapman, is a notorious pirate that has long kept secret the whereabouts of his famed treasure. Commander Clement (Eric Idle) suggests that Yellowbeards scentence be increased on the very day he was to be released (explaining to Yellowbeard that this is to occur because judges didn't know he would out live his original scentence of twenty years), then Yellowbeard will be encouraged to escape and try to go and seek out his buried treasure.
The map to the treasure was discarded by Yellowbeard's wife (Madeline Kahn) who remembered to make a copy on her son Dan's head (Martin Hewitt). One of Yellowbeard's fellow prison mates (Marty Feldman) and one of his fellow shipmates (Peter Boyle...you can see you have nearly the whole cast of 'Young Frankenstein') hijack a ship and trick Dan and his fellow mates to join the navy. By making Dan captian of the ship, they're hoping he will navigate the boat to the island where the treasure is hidden. Everyone wants their hands on Yellowbeard's treasure, including the leader and monk of the island where it is hidden (Tommy Chong doing his worst as the leader with a lisp, El Nebuloso) and Cheech Marin (not doing too bad in a stupid part) as the French monk, El Segundo, who want to also capture Yellowbeard and his son and their friends. Basically, everyone is after that treasure. It is just a matter of who gets hold of it first.
The jokes are pretty funny, particularly towards the beginning and middle of the movie, but once Dan and his mates join the Navy and go aboard the ship where a majority of the movie later takes place, the pace of the movie really starts to slow down and the story becomes much less interesting (though the scenes with Eric Idle as Commander Clements are still some of my favorite). The finale of the movie, if you haven't lost interest by that point, is pretty disappointing, if not altogether stupid.
If you really like period stupid comedies, I would recommend watching Eric the Viking or Time Bandits or even The Adventures of Baron Munchausen instead. Yellowbeard, despite all of it's fantastic talent and a couple of great jokes, really needed something more in the plot to keep it going. The story at some points just seems to be all over the place and instead, is more concerned with throwing in jokes here and there (the pitfall of the stupid comedy genre usually is when the filmmakers lose sight of any semblence of a plot, if any, on many occassions throughout the movie). It's just not all that it could be.