I was intrigued by the poster as a teenager and wanted to see this film, also because it was directed by Tony Richardson (I loved Tom Jones). But the reviews were pretty bad, so I didn't go.
I just watched it. It's sort of Tony Richardson's strange attempt at making a foreign (i.e. continental European) movie. I liked it! The film was shot in Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Ethiopia.
Alan (Ian Bannen) and his girlfriend Sheila (Vanessa Redgrave) are on vacation in Italy. Alan seems kind of bipolar. He hates his job and quarrels with Sheila. Anna (Jeanne Moreau) turns up with her ship, the Gibraltar. Alan becomes infatuated with Anna, a woman who travels from port to port, searching for a sailor whom she knew years before. Alan dumps Sheila and sails with Anna. They become lovers as she roams the seas looking for a man who may be mythical. Orson Welles turns up as Louis de Mozambique, a very strange character with a very strange accent. (I remember reading that Orson Welles was making a career out of playing "fat old men sitting down." I think that review referred to his role as Cardinal Wolsey in A Man for all Seasons, but the critic must also have been referring to The Sailor from Gibraltar.) Hugh Griffith turns up with an equally odd accent, a far cry from his triumph as Squire Western in Tom Jones. The dialogue is sort of stilted but enjoyable. The ship travels around, based on tips Anna receives, finally arriving in Africa.
Evidently what was happening offstage was as interesting and bizarre as the film's plot. Tony Richardson was having an affair with his star (Moreau), even though his partner/the mother of his children (Redgrave) was in the film. Ian Bannen was a problem, causing all kinds of mischief. This quote describes his bizarre behavior:
“I’d worked with him on television,” Richardson wrote in his memoirs, “but I never knew that he had deep psychological problems – especially when dealing with sexual and emotional scenes, where he would often relapse into a psychotic infantilism so profound that it was impossible to reach him in any way.” Bannen’s behavior on the film, if Richardson’s account is truthful, would make a great madcap comedy but for those who had to work with him, it was no laughing matter. Some of his more infamous antics during the production included almost causing a car accident in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia when he grabbed the driver’s genitals, hitting Jeanne Moreau in the face when she asked him to share with the film crew the Camembert cheese she had flown in from France, trying to destroy the airport gift shop in Khartoum and using the naked body of his co-star Hugh Griffith, who had passed out drunk, as a freeform canvass on which he created intricate Maori warrior-like designs with caviar."
Nevertheless, the film has a weird, fairy tale-like quality which is fascinating, and I'm glad that I finally saw it, after all these years.
Anna sings a song for Alan
