Treasure Island
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Movie Reviews of Treasure Island
Movie Review: Great one
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this for my son because I wanted him to see the old classics instead of all that Nickeloden crap. It was a good one. We both enjoyed it very much.Movie Review: Great Classic for Students to Watch.
Summary: 4 Stars
My high school students will really enjoy this classic. We love to compare the book with the movie. These old movies are great for the classroom.Movie Review: Baby Boomers' Delusions
Summary: 3 Stars
There's something sad about we Boomers. It's this tendency to look back at mediocre 1950s entertainment (television, film, or music) and glorify it. Such is the case with Disney's "Treasure Island."
This was a Disney production, like so many during the 1950s, that was aimed at an adolescent audience, not the public at-large. It motors through the story with limited style and very little substance. I am not being facetious when I say that the old Classic Illustrated comic book provides more story depth than this film. Just compare the two!
One of the greatest defects is the failure to provide any of the set up which is an important part of the book and was treated in excellent fashion by the vastly superior 1934 version. Unforgettable characters like Billy Bones, Black Dog, and Blind Pew seem to make an obligatory appearance and vanish with little impact. Ben Gunn shares a similar fate. And Jim's mother doesn't appear at all.
The primary characters, with the exclusion of Silver, are little more than cardboard figures. Jackie Cooper might have been annoying in the 1934 film but at least he had some life and expression to him. Bobby Driscoll as Jim walks around wide-eyed and in a trance for most of the movie.
Now many of the "five star" reviewers rave about Robert Newton's performance. Did they actually read the book? Silver was a complex, violent, scoundral. In this respect, Newton partially fits the bill. But Sliver was also a con artist. And a key part of the tale is how he cons Jim.
The 1934 version has been criticized for Wallace Berry playing Silver as being somewhat warm and fuzzy. This is a legitimate point, to a certain degree. But in contrast to Newton's portral, Berry is much closer to Stevenson's Silver. Berry is convincing in his con, Newton is not.
Newton looks like a homicidal maniac throughout the film. It really stretches belief that educated adults would put any trust in him. More importantly, an adolescent the age of Jim would be in deathly fear of such an individual. Being frightened is not the same as being conned!
To be sure Berry mugged a lot and hammed it up. But that's what we could expect from Berry---and he made it work. Newton didn't have the same magic. He growls through his lines, and that incessant eye-popping makes you want to set up an appointment with your ophthalmologist. He mugged just as much as Berry, but lacked the talent to pull it off.
Of course, the core of the novel deals with the relationship between Silver and Jim. There's just not any chemistry in this version, particularly when you compare it to the way Berry and Cooper worked it.
Beyond Newton's vastly overrated performance, the Disney version lacks much the tension that was incorporated into the 1934 film. I've already alluded to the weak set up. Let me be a little more specific.
In the Berry-Cooper version, the appearance of Black Dog creates a dark omen, and a threatening Pew establihes an impending danger. The wonderful Lionel Barrymore as Billy Bones ties it all together. When the pirates do finally raid the Admiral Benbow, we are as fearful as Jim and his mother, who are in hiding as these cut throats ransack their inn. The Disney version just doesn't take us there. There are numerous other examples, but for the sake of brevity, I'll compare Jim's encounters with the pirates in both films.
In the 1934 film, Jackie Cooper is menaced and intimidated when in the company of these seadogs. There's even a very subtle suggestion of pederasty. It makes us feel uncomforable. In contrast, when Driscoll is threatened, we are not. The best illustration of the differences between the films in this regard is the way each treats Jim's encounter with Israel Hands. The earlier film builds to a steady crescendo before Jim kills the pirate. The Disney version does not.
To conclude, the Disney film is fine if you are either an adolescent or a Baby Boomer. It provides a quick, capsulized accounting of the tale. If you are looking for a more substantial film presentation of Stevenson's classic, go with the Berry-Cooper version
Movie Review: Treasure Island Summary
Summary: 3 Stars
Billy Bones, an old, scarred sailor arrives at the Admiral Benbow inn, where Jim Hawkins works. Billy Bones fills Jim's ears with stories of the open sea and warns him to be on the lookout for a one-legged man. Some of Bones' former shipmates appear and give him a slip of paper with a black spot on it, terrifying the old man. Bones dies of a stroke, and Jim escapes with his treasure map as the other sailors polish the inn. Jim takes the map to Dr. Livesey, who forms a plan with his friend Squire Trelawney to sail after the treasure, which was buried by the pirate Captain Flint.Jim travels to Bristol to meet up with the ship, the Hispaniola. In Bristol, he meets the ship's cook, Long John Silver, a one-legged man who recommended many of the ship's crew to Trelawney. Despite Billy Bones warning about a one-legged man, Jim is won over by Silver's friendly charm. Then, after an uneventful voyage, Jim is on deck one night and overhears Silver plotting a mutiny.. While on the island, Jim sees Silver kill a sailor who won't join the mutiny and meets Ben Gunn, a marooned sailor who lives on the island. Meanwhile, Dr. Livesey, Squire Trelawney, and the others leave the ship and find a stockade on the island, where they settle in for a fight.
Under Captain Smollett's command, they endure the pirates' first attack. Jim arrives at the stockade and joins the defenders. The pirates storm the stockade, and several men are killed and Captain Smollett wounded in a bloody battle.
After anchoring the ship in a new place to fool the pirates, Jim returns to the stockade, where he is captured by Silver's men (this is the climax of the story). Silver tells Jim that Dr. Livesey and the others agreed to give the pirates the stockade and the treasure map. (Dr. Livesey did this because he discovered that Ben Gunn had already dug up the treasure.) Silver lets Jim live when Jim promises to testify for him if the mutineers are caught. The pirates set out to look for the treasure, but find only an empty hole. When they turn on Silver and Jim, Dr. Livesey, Ben Gunn, and another loyal man ambush the pirates and drive them off. They rejoin the captain and Squire Trelawney, who are waiting with the treasure. They sail back to England, but Silver escapes when they land in South America.
The theme of the story is the victory of good over evil. Saving the treasure from the hands of the pirates and their safe return also records Jim's journey from an immature young lad to a responsible youth.
Movie Review: Decent but Dated
Summary: 3 Stars
With Treasure Island you have to take the good with the bad. Being a Disney film from the 1950's the acting is served up with some thick slices of ham and most of the movie is clearly filmed on a sound stage. I would contrast this with the 2001 film Cast Away that was filled with stunning location shots on a remote island. The fact that it never feels like we actually leave the Disney sound stages does diminish the film for me but that is simply the way it was done back then. The centerpiece of the film is without a doubt Robert Newton as the one legged, parrot on his shoulder, Long John Silver. Newton has essentially become the template for the generic pirate and if you watch his acting now it feels hilariously clichéd. After John Silver cleverly disposed of Mr. Arrow a eulogy was held and following the prayer Silver serves up an `arRRRrmen'. I couldn't help but burst out laughing but I wasn't laughing at the film but with the semi-unintentional humor. It's not Disney's fault that Netwon's portrayal made such an indelible impact on our collective psyche that his very speech pattern has become the model of a cartoon pirate. On national `Talk like a Pirate' people are essentially speaking like Robert Newton whether they know it or not.
The film itself didn't blow me away. I found it rather dated and hokey which was not unexpected when watching a Disney film that's nearly sixty years old. There was one fight between the pirates and the rest of the crew of the Hispaniola that gave me a chuckle when the filmmakers used the old chestnut of putting paint on a sword and running it down the bare chest of a pirate to give the less than convincing illusion that that man was slashed. Newton's scenery chewing acting is fun but other actors take it a bit over the top to the point of distracting. I have a feeling the young viewers will find the film a bit boring when compared to modern special effects laden films and I have to confess that even I found it a bit plodding at times. It's a fairly faithful adaptation although the ending was slightly altered. Long John Silver steals a rowboat and paddles off into the sunset which seemed kind of funny since I was always under that impression that Treasure Island was a long way away from mainland. Treasure Island is good for a viewing but for me once was nice and I don't feel the need to actually own it. I would defintely suggest getting the original Robert Lewis Stenveson classic book.