Captain Ras Mohammed (Peter Boyle) is a seventeenth century pirate. After amassing a vast treasure, he takes a few seamen and his cook, Dick Scratcher (Peter Sellers) on a desert island to bury it. Ras makes a map of the location of the proposed sight as he is laying it out. After the treasure is buried, Scratcher kills the captain and the seamen. He then returns to the ship, waiting offshore, and declares himself the new captain. He tells the crew that since he is the only one who knows where the treasure is located, it gives him the right. It’s not long before he finds out that the captain drew the map in disappearing ink. Now Scratcher has no idea where the treasure is.
Scratcher and the crew wander around the globe for fourteen years. Eventually they find their way to the shores of Ireland. In Ireland Scratcher finds an Irish kid, Jeremiah (Richard Willis). Scratcher believes that Jeremiah can see ghosts. He wants Jeremiah to talk to the dead Captain Mohammed and get directions to the treasure, so he kidnaps the kid. The crew sails on to Algiers. In Algiers Jeremiah is thrown into prison. With the help of an old friend, Billy Bombay (Spike Milligan), Scratcher and the crew get Jeremiah out of prison.
The ship manages to escape capture and return to sea. Eventually, the ship and crew find themselves back on the island where the treasure was hidden. Scratcher hopes that now Jeremiah can find the ghost of Captain Mohammed and convince him to reveal the location of the treasure. Things don’t totally work out as planned.
“Ghost in the Noonday Sun” was released in 1974 and was directed by Peter Medak. It is a British comedy farce and a parody. The movie is loosely based on the novel by Sid Fleischman. Opinions differ on if the film ever had a theatrical release. Some say no, but some say that it had a brief release in 1978. Some also say that the film was never completed so that’s why there was no release. It seems that enough of it was done for a VHS release in 1984.
The movie is basically horrible. It was long, tedious and very unfunny. It seems that Peter Sellers was awful to work with and was in a rather depressive state. Many attributed it to his relationship with Liza Minnelli being on the rocks. The script went through several reworks and revisions by multiple people. It may have started out based on the book, but it ended up being only a shadow of the original story, with lots of slapstick and bad jokes to round it out.
Before the opening credits start, the film has a silent seven-minute prologue that is styled similar to films from the silent era, including intertitles. After the opening credits, the film continues on as a regular color film.
It may be worth it for Peter Sellers completists and those that like pointless mugging at the camera, but for anyone else it might be tough to watch all the way through.