Weird commandline behaviour with SunOS 5.5.1

[Jo Meder]

Dear Python community!

On a SunOS 5.5.1 virtual machine I observed, that commandline 
parameters to scripts seem to get mixed up or misinterpreted: 

Entering "python  script.py -r" at the shell prompt does call
python correctly but the  interpreter will barf because there
is no valid option named "-r" for Python itself.  Python will
then stop with a helpful message about allowed options to the 
invocation  of the  our beloved interpreter. According to the 
documentation, this should have  never happened since options 
after the scriptname should be given to the script instead of
the interpreter.

Changing the invocatione to "python script.py %r" (e.g.) does
help, but I'm a little reluctant to use kludges like changing
the option indicator from something widely used to a nonstan-
dard character.

This interpreter was compiled  using "configure" without any 
additional options except a special path for installation.

I observed this originally with Python 1.4 but the problem is
still there in 1.52. I originally  attributed it to stupidity
on my part, but now I'm unsure whom to blame. Is this a shell
misbehaving or misconfigured or is it a pythonic problem?

Thanks in advance for  pointers to documentation I missed or 
for any helpful hints.

Best regards,

                Jo.