Peter Sellers persuaded Peter Medak, a friend of his, to make the film. "He was an incredible guy," said Medak of Sellers. "His invention would go into supersonic flight. You couldn't stop him. He had classical comedy genius."
This was the first of three pirate films that Peter Boyle appeared in over a ten year period. The others were Il corsaro della Giamaica (1976) and Barbagialla, il terrore dei sette mari e mezzo (1983), all made at a time when no one was really making Pirate films.
The film was shot in 1973 and has a copyright notice in the opening credits for 1974. Columbia Pictures deemed the film not worthy of cinematic release. It was ultimately released on Betamax and VHS home video in 1985, and on DVD in 2016.
Filming started with Larry Pizer as cinematographer, but Peter Sellers ordered director Peter Medak to fire him only about a week into production, with Michael Reed being brought in to take over for the remainder of the shoot. Though Sellers claimed that Pizer was working too slowly and not lighting him satisfactorily, Medak later recounted that there had been an on-set party the night before Sellers demanded that Pizer be removed from the production, and that according to some of the other people at the party, an argument between the two had nearly resulted in them coming to blows.