In 1814 Sir Walter Scott accompanied commissioners from the Northern Lighthouse Service on a six-week cruise around Scotland. What he saw then of the Shetland Islands later inspired this book.
He was also inspired by an account of the life of John Gow, who became the basis for Captain Cleveland.
The film
Actor-Inspired Element: Gene Kelly pushed for his character to be expressed more through ballet than he had done in films previously.
Box Office Bomb: The film was a major financial bust upon release, eventually losing $2 million for MGM. It was in production from February 1947, on and off, until 19 December 1947, which escalated the production costs to such a level that there was little or no hope of its ever earning back enough to end up on the profit side of the ledger; this accounted for a much larger proportion of its well known financial loss, than its otherwise widely publicized cool reception by the ticket buying public, which didn't help either.
Creator Backlash: Louis B. Mayer openly hated this film, finding it both "high-brow" and extremely pretentious. Even though its box office failure added plenty of red ink to the studio's financial bottom line for fiscal 1948, Mayer was secretly overjoyed (and felt personally vindicated) when it bombed.
Cut Song: "Voodoo", and Lena Horne's rendition of "Love of My Life".
"Voodoo", a duet between Manuela and Serafin while the former is hypnotized, was cut after test screenings because Louis B. Meyer abhorred how torrid it was.
Lena Horne had a small role as Manuela's dressmaker and sang "Love Of My Life", hence why Manuela's version is listed as a reprise on the soundtrack. She was cut for unknown reasons.
Louis B. Mayer HATED Gene and Judy's sultry duet "Voodoo". He ordered the negative of it to be destroyed and had "Mack The Black" filmed in its place. Thankfully, the audio recording of it still survived.
Judy Garland and Gene Kelly fought tooth and nail to keep in the scenes of The Nicholas Brothers. But they were removed when the movie was screened down South since MGM thought audiences would be offended at seeing a white man sharing the stage with two black men.
Missing Episode: The torrid romance enacted by Judy Garland and Gene Kelly in "Voodoo" so enraged Louis B. Mayer that he demanded the negative be burned.
Playing Against Type: Judy Garland took the role for a chance to play something outside her Girl Next Door, all-American types. Manuela has erotic fantasies about a pirate, and is convinced to run out on her arranged marriage to indulge them.
Unhappy with Kay Thompson's arrangement of the opening number, "Mack The Black", Arthur Freed ordered the song re-recorded and re-shot. Judy Garland termed Thompson's treatment of the song, "insanity", and Cole Porter diplomatically offered that the number "has me in a dither."
Elaborate sets were built to Minnelli's exacting instructions. For Kelly's number Nina, a plaza in the town of Calvados was built on a soundstage at MGM, with a pavilion in the middle and the streets unevenly paved with cobblestones for realistic effect. The cost was $86,660.00
Years of overwork at MGM, postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter Liza Minnelli nine months earlier, and a heavy reliance on prescription medication finally caught up with Judy Garland, and she often failed to show up on time for work, if at all. According to her biographer John Fricke, she was also unhappy with the way the film was shaping up. Despite her initial enthusiasm to play a character outside her usual winsome all-American roles, Garland "began to feel adrift in the imaginative self-indulgence that suddenly surrounded her on the set of The Pirate. Her instincts told her that Minnelli, Kelly, and [Kay] Thompson were unwittingly producing a motion picture for themselves- and for an audience that might not exist." Her marriage to Minnelli began to unravel during the shoot, and her consumption of prescription stimulants and sedatives increased. After suffering a panicked breakdown on the set during the filming of one musical number, Garland was hospitalized for a couple of weeks. The crew and her co-workers were sympathetic to the young woman's travails, testifying that she was not a temperamental star but a talented artist struggling with health issues. Out of 135 days of rehearsals and shooting, Garland was absent for 99.
Early drafts of the adaptation changed things around so that Serafin was a dancing pirate pretending to be an entertainer. The writers who came up with this, Anita Loos and Joseph Than, were then fired and replaced with Albert Hacket and Frances Goodrich. Their script reversed things to the original play's format, and also dropped the role of Conchita (written for Lena Horne).
, who became the basis for Captain Cleveland.