Ken Russell was a highly talented director who lost his ties to the industry in the late 80s. 90s were very difficult time for him for various reasons. During this era, he worked on some pretty obscure and poor material. This no-budget musical comedy with a twist (in this adaptation, Silver is a woman) based on a classic novel is unfortunately one of them.
Instead of an actual review, here's a copy of a public post made by a Youtube user, who claimed to have worked on the movie in a minor role. This is highly informative AND as good as any normal review.
Quote:
I do have a VHS copy of this somewhere, recorded off-air: I was in it!. It was a strange thing - its main purpose was as a vehicle for Ken's then (third) wife, an actress and would-be sex goddess called Hetty Baynes with whom the 68-year old Ken was somewhat obsessed at the time. Ken tried to do it all on a shoestring, shooting on low-res video in cheap locations like the Cutty Sark ship at Greenwich, and in some sand dunes in Cornwall - most of the rest was done at Pinewood, both on the sound stages and outside in very English-looking woodland! He even tried to save money by using amateur actors found at open London auditions, though that was mainly a publicity stunt - in the event they were so awful he cast professionals in most of the leads (though not, alas, Jim Hawkins, who was excruciating). One of the other amateurs, playing a member of the pirate crew, walked out halfway through the shoot, and Ken was in despair until someone noticed the sound engineer looked a bit like him. He was duly dressed in the costume and shot for the remaining scenes, and two quite different people ended up playing the same part! The other challenge was that Ken had a major heart attack just after we'd started, and the whole thing was postponed for months. When he finally came back he was pretty sick man, and had lost what remained of his famous daring and energy. What could have been a bizarre but entertainingly surreal and freaky piece turned into a very damp squib, and is undoubtedly the worst thing I've done in over 40 years as an actor - so bad was it that when the lights came up at the end of the first screening there was no applause, just a completely stunned silence!
