The Pirates of Penzance (1983 Film)

The Pirates Of Penzance (1983 Film)

The Pirates of Penzance is a 1983 musical film based on Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera of the same name. It stars Kevin Kline, Rex Smith, Angela Lansbury, George Rose, Linda Ronstadt, and, Tony Azito. The cast also includes Timothy Bentinck, Louise Gold, and Tilly Vosburgh. It was filmed at Shepperton Studios in London.

The movie is a film version of the 1980 Joseph Papp production of Pirates. The original Broadway cast reprised their roles in the film, except that Lansbury replaced Estelle Parsons as Ruth. The minor roles used British actors miming to their Broadway counterparts. The film was not a box office success, but, according to the IMDB, this "had nothing to do with the reviews, which were often quite positive. The real problem lay with Universal Pictures' decision to release the film simultaneously to SelecTV (a Los Angeles subscription television service) and to theaters. Theater owners were so angry that they boycotted the film; in the end, only 92 theaters agreed to show it, and it enjoyed a long run at only one of them."

The film was released on DVD in September, 2010.