DICK DEADEYE, THE MOVIE
                  A Review by Winfield Smith

"Dick Deadeye" is a 1976 (?) feature-length (80 minutes) animated
cartoon fantasia on Gilbert & Sullivan themes, using visual
designs by Ronald Searle, the master of Victorian Rococo cartoon
style.  The picture is from Bill Melendex Productions, the people
who have us the Charlie Brown TV specials and "Charlotte's Web". 
It is now available on video-cassettes distributed under the
Family Home Entertainment label, for $59.95....

The film itself is a first-class production, given its producers'
intentions.  It was made for theatrical release, to be accompa-
nied by a hardcover picture-book and deluxe sound-track LP.... 
But the film did poorly with public and critics on its first
outings in L.A., Boston, and London, then sat on the shelf while
the owners tried to figure out how to merchandise it.  At last
they have up and offered it for pay/cable TV distribution and,
more recently, on home cassettes.  In neither of these forms has
there been any advertising that relates t he title to the G&S
theme, so it is no wonder that the film continues to miss its
natural audience of G&S aficionados.

Even some of these will find the film a little strange.  The
music, drawn mostly from Iolanthe, Mikado, Patience, Pirates,
Pinafore, and Sorcerer, has been re-scored for a variety of
Nashville-Pop-Rock groupings, rather like the ones used for the
N.Y. Shakespeare Festival's hugely successful Pirates except that
at DD occasionally uses more real strings and horns and fewer
synthesizers, thank goodness.  Plot themes and characters from
all the aforementioned operas are blended in a new story, still
set in Victorian times but containing echoes of 1960's themes and
concerns: folk music -- civil rights and protests -- counter
culture -- you name it.  Some of the lyrics have been rewritten,
others not.  Clearly, this is not a film for the stern tradition-
alist.

I especially liked:
     o    Searle's witty designs for landscapes, streets, build-
ings of every kind, and people;

o    o    the overture, a lovely thing for a full, conventional
orchestra;

     o    the filmed lead-in to the main title, in which an
unseen Queen (Victoria?, Elizabeth II?) gives Dick (who sounds
like Ringo Starr) his instructions and then declares the film
officially open;

     o    the dynamic Las Vegas finale, in which a group of
thinly-clad showgirls celebrate the revelation of the Ultimate
Secret.

Oh yes, there's the fact that the story makes room for just about
all of the G&S troupe of Dirty Old Men (Pirate King, Judge,
Chancellor, Admiral, and Sorcerer), each given juicy vocal
characterizations to go with Searle's fine visualizations....

[This article appeared in Issue 4 (September 1985) of Precious
Nonsense, the newsletter of the Midwestern Gilbert & Sullivan
Society.  Posted by permission of Sarah Cole, Society Secre-
tary/Archivist.  For information on Society membership write to: 
The Midwestern Gilbert & Sullivan Society, c/o Miss Sarah Cole,
613 W. State St., North Aurora, IL 60542-1538.] 

[See also the file "dick_deadeye_movie", which is a further
review and plot synopsis of the Dick Deadeye movie which appeared
in the May 1991 Precious Nonsense.]