It was screened out of competition at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival,[4] and was a box-office bomb, although the costume design was nominated for an Academy Award.

In 1659, an infamous English pirate Captain Red and his cabin boy Jean-Baptiste, nicknamed "Frog", are lost on a raft in the ocean without food and supplies.

Boomako has been imprisoned after being caught attempting to steal a golden Aztec throne that is being secretly transported in the hold.

Meanwhile, Frog falls in love with Maria Dolores, the niece of Maracaibo's governor, who is travelling on the Neptune as a passenger.

Captain Linares dies and the command of the ship is taken by his ruthless and ambitious first mate, lieutenant Don Alfonso de la Torre, who is also in love with Maria Dolores, although she does not reciprocate his feelings.

Putting himself in command of the Neptune, Captain Red directs the ship to a pirate cove, led by his old associate Dutch.

Don Alfonso and his men return to the Neptune and retake the ship, sailing away with the golden throne in the morning.

Although the governor proves to be unsympathetic for his niece's fate, he becomes more cooperative after Captain Red tortures him instead, finding out that he is suffering from gout.

However, Red and Frog fail to carry the throne out of the bay and are captured by Don Alfonso, who puts them in prison.

However, in the end, he remains loyal to Captain Red, abandoning the fight with Don Alfonso to aid his leader in capturing the throne.

With the Neptune burning and beyond repair, her remaining crew and passengers flee on the boat while Red, Frog, and Boomako get away in one of their own with the golden throne in their possession.

With Maria Dolores out of his reach, a furious Frog throws insults at Don Alfonso, who tries to shoot him in retaliation.

Riding on the success of the highly acclaimed Chinatown, Roman Polanski began to write a screenplay for a swashbuckling adventure film called Pirates alongside his regular collaborator Gerard Brach.

In 1976, he said that he aimed to make Pirates the following year in England and Malta, and that he would act in the film but play only a small role.

[9] In October, Arnon Milchan announced that he would produce the film, which would be shot in Tel Aviv the following year at a budget of $24 million.

[10] Polanski called the film "a comedy adventure, in the style of 'Treasure Island' or that Disneyland pirate ride, the kind of thing you dream of as a child".

But once you have a subject complicated, more ambitious, like Pirates, even if you have a delightful script and great enthusiasm, even if you promise them heaven, they are afraid.

[13] Two months before production began, Dino de Laurentiis, who would release the film in Europe, arranged a deal with MGM/UA worth $9.5 million.

We're using the stereotypes and cliches of old pirate movies and books such as Treasure Island to explain the whole mythology so dear to kids.

[18] Eventually, Walter Matthau agreed to play the lead, and Cris Campion, a French rock drummer, signed on as his sidekick.

An accurate replica above the waterline, but sporting a steel hull and a 400 HP auxiliary engine, the Neptune was and still is entered into the Tunisian naval registry, and is currently a tourist attraction in the port of Genoa, where its interior can be visited for a 6 euro fee.

[8] "Another producer might have torn his hair out by now, or developed an ulcer or swallowed lots of tranquilizers," said Ben Ammar during the shoot.

Yes, Polanski does seem to be disaster-prone, but his talent is so great that wonderful actors like Matthau and the top European technicians all wanted to work here with him.

"[14] Ammar and fellow producer Thom Mount were unhappy with the involvement of MGM/UA and eventually raised the funds to buy them out of the film.

On 14 May 2010, actress Charlotte Lewis and her attorney Gloria Allred accused director Roman Polanski of predatory sexual conduct against her when she was 16 years old.

[30] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 32 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.