Movie Pitch:

Title: Call Me Silvie (aka Îsle de Trésor)

Genre: Comedy

Author:		Peter G Q Brooks
		pcbrooks@earthlink.net
		(323) 851-1958


Agent/Attorney:	Stuart A Bronstein
		sablaw@sbcglobal.net
		(415) 285-5511


Pitch: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert meets Treasure Island

Outline:

Set in Jolly Olde Englande in the days of Blackbeard the Pirate (early 1700s), when conscription was all the rage and you could say your sooth professionally for a groat a session as long as no-one reported you as a witch.

The unlikely hero is angst-filled Rumblestiltskin James Ladd (think Woody Allen, Billy Crystal, Mel Brooks, Jon Lovitz or maybe Matthew Broderick), a professional Sayer of Sooth from New York (in the days when New really did mean New) trying to eke out a living - and we're not talking major eke here - in Plymouth Ho!, England, whence he had gone to ply his trade and plight his troth based on a misunderstanding of the meaning of Ho! and the name "Holly Gail".

This is a tale of tall ships and short women (who usually turn out to be stocky men in skirts - and we don't mean the Queen's Own Highlanders), of skulls being duggered, and small buoys being tossed overboard at the slightest provocation.

The story is a combination of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Treasure Island, but with more haut couture and a little cordon bleu thrown in for good measure (for example, today's menu features charançon de biscuit à l'orange - biscuit weevils in orange sauce). 

R. Jim Ladd becomes the unfortunate victim of a press gang (and we don't mean the editors of the New York Times) and is conscripted into the British Royal Navy after accidentally accepting the King's Shilling - or was it the Queen's Purse?

In truth it wasn't the Queen's Purse that got him conscripted so much as the cosh on the back of his head... 

After only a few weeks at sea Jim finds his sea legs - someone locked them away in the aft stowage for a lark - and he finally stops letting go for'ard due to severe seasickness.  If he's lucky, he will also soon stop letting go aft quite so often too, although that's rather dependent on avoiding the weevils in the ship's biscuits.

The naval vessel The Good Ship Stewart M Arthur - on which our hero is currently learning how to buckle his swash, polish his cutlass, shiver his timbers, splice his mainbrace and sling his hook - is suddenly attacked by the pirate ship Chock Full o' Bar Stewards, manned by none other than Long Johns Silver (think Leslie Nielsen, Mel Brooks or Billy Connolly), the most fearsome pirate this side of the Spanish Main and probably the other side too.

The luckless Jim and a few other survivors are hauled off by Long Johns' crew to Camp Treasure Island to learn how to be real pirates and say "Argh!" in a gruff voice, all the while being alternately egged on and abused by Long Johns' talkative Greek South African Gray parrot, Testicles (like Sophocles but with rather more expletives).

Among other things Jim invents the wooden leg while trying to build a pipe rack, and shortly afterwards creates the bagel when his model (Long Johns) accidentally stomps on a bread bun while trying out the leg.  

Under Jim Ladd's influence, however, it isn't long before Long Johns is, alas, afeared - not fearsome - and more concerned with selling a franchise for Jim's latest creation, a pseudoParis parfum, El Hedor del Pirata (Stench of a Pirate). Long Johns is also becoming more and more concerned with his persona and frequently asks Jim: "Tell me, which leg goes with this dress?"

Treasure Island - now renamed Îsle de Trésor courtesy of Jim's new ideas - becomes a training camp for old pirates to learn how to become New Buccaneers, as LJ's followers style themselves.

We follow Jim's adventures as he attempts to turn his misfortune into fortune all the while filling the pirates' minds with angst and self-awareness, and all some more of the while cunningly planning a cunning plan to get himself back home to his Plymouth Ho! and his search for Holly Gail.

The plan is so cunning that its left hand doesn't know that its right hand is sneaking up behind it with a large mallet.  Holly Gail (think Anne Bancroft, Cloris Leachman, Eleanor Bron) is in fact Long Johns' Moll and Jim must help her to choose between the two of them (by devising a version of "Blind Date" in which he, Long Johns and Long Johns' parrot, Testicles, vie for being the most charming).

Eventually our hero escapes (our hero is Jim, by the way - in case you  hadn't guessed) with Holly Gail, and with Long Johns Silver in hot pursuit (on account of accidentally dropping chili powder into his pantaloons) the pair flee across the one...two...three...Seven Seas and home to Plymouth Ho! where the law and Long John finally meet in a duel to the almost but not quite death, and everybody lives happily ever after. Which, considering the life expectancy at that time, was probably about three years.

6/2/2002