Cinema of Swords

Treasure Island
Rating: ***** (Essential)
Origin: USA, 1950
Director: Byron Haskin
Source: Disney DVD

Walt Disney liked to adapt classic tales that were well-known (and copyright-free), so when he decided to make his first live-action feature, it’s not surprising that he chose Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, with its child protagonist and adventures in exotic locales. What is surprising is how hard-edged and gritty it is, considering Disney’s later (well-earned) reputation for peddling bland conformist mediocrity. This 1950 film is as tense and dynamic as its pre-Code 1934 predecessor, and just as closely adapted from the novel, though the exact choice of scenes and dialogue varies between the two. Moreover the Disney version, of course, is in vibrant full color.

Though the Disney film’s Billy Bones, Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesy, and Captain Smollett can’t match up to their earlier incarnations, Bobby Driscoll as young Jim Hawkins does well, and is far less grating than the saccharine Jackie Cooper. And as good as Wallace Beery was as Long John Silver—and he was very good indeed—Robert Newton in the Disney version simply blows him away. He is Stevenson’s consummate con man in the flesh, all deference and false humility, constantly letting the mask slip just enough to show the audience the calculating schemer behind the smile—a trick he learned from Beery, to be sure, but Newton perfects it. Plus, the broad West-Country accent he adopts as Silver has become the default talk-like-a-pirate voice of piratical rogues ever since. You can blame Newton for “Ahr,” which he slips in everywhere; at the end of a funeral prayer for a man he’s murdered, he even solemnly intones, “Ahr-men.” And with a wink, you know the mutiny will soon be on.

The film was shot almost entirely on location in Cornwall and the tropics, and it looks great, including the background matte paintings of Bristol Port and a distant Hispaniola run aground on Treasure Island’s shore. Speaking of the Hispaniola, the ship plays such an important rôle in the plot that in any adaptation of Stevenson’s tale it’s practically a member of the cast, and for this version they’ve got a fine square-rigged three-master that’s completely persuasive. The most important decision in the novel, and the most intense scene in the film, is when Jim Hawkins decides to leave the safety of the stockade and go alone to cut the Hispaniola adrift, which leads to the nightmarish pursuit of the lad across the darkened deck and up into the rigging by the deranged and murderous pirate Israel Hands (Geoffrey Keen). It’s the emotional climax of the movie, and after Jim wins through single-handed, there’s no doubt but that in the end the ragtag pirates will be no match for young Hawkins and the forces of right and decency, no matter how John Silver plies his deceitful silver tongue.

Treasure Island
Rating: *****
Origin: USA
Director: Victor Fleming
Source: Warner Bros. DVD

Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic 1883 novel established the entire genre of pirate swashbucklers, so naturally it had been filmed in the silent era—five times, in fact. However, none of these older films have survived, so the earliest adaptation we have is this one—but this one’s all we need. It’s a wonderful film that has a lot going for it, but what makes it endlessly re-watchable is the larger-than-life performance of Wallace Beery as Long John Silver.

Conversely, alas, it has one major liability that, despite Beery’s best efforts, makes the modern viewer cringe and wince: the inclusion of Beery’s co-star, child actor Jackie Cooper, as young Jim Hawkins. To be fair, Cooper delivered exactly what was asked of him, which was to be painfully over-earnest and sentimental, like every other 1930s child star. It’s just that by current standards and sensibilities, the performances of 1930s child actors like Jackie Cooper, Shirley Temple, and their ilk, are so God-damned grating that you just want to fast-forward right past them.

All right, we got that little rant out of the way. On to the movie: Treasure Island is a pretty close adaptation of Stevenson’s novel, which means it starts slowly, with the first act involving the fugitive pirate Billy Bones at the Admiral Benbow Inn that establishes the backstory. Fortunately this production has the great Lionel Barrymore (brother of John) in the rôle of Billy Bones, and he leaves no scenery unchewed in a bravura performance that ends in his death from equal parts terror and rum. But in death he unwittingly bequeaths to Jim Hawkins the map to the plunder buried on Treasure Island, and avast! We’re off to the Caribbean.

But how to get there, eh? Eh? Enter Squire Trelawney as played by Nigel Bruce (later to be Dr. Watson to Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes—harrumph, harrumph!). He takes Jim off to Bristol Port, perfectly depicted with a forest of masts above a row of docked ships. On the Bristol wharf we meet Long John Silver, and from there on the rest of the film belongs to Wallace Beery. Silver is the original engaging scoundrel, and Beery plays him broad, smiling, squinting, rolling his eyes and looking around furtively, making sure the audience is in on the joke of his duplicity from the beginning. Jim Hawkins and Squire Trelawney are completely taken in, allowing Silver to pack the crew of the “Hispaniola” with pirates. But Captain Smollett (craggy Lewis Stone, whom we last saw in the 1923 Scaramouche) isn’t fooled by Silver’s smarmy ways, and spots him as a cunning rogue.

But by that time they’ve arrived at Treasure Island, and it’s mutiny, mates, so serve out the cutlasses! The plot adheres closely to the twists and rapid reversals of the novel, and the action scenes are staged well, their imagery striking and memorable. The tense scene in which Jim Hawkins is pursued around the drifting “Hispaniola” by a wounded pirate, Israel Hands, is particularly fine. One can almost forgive the swab for letting Jackie Cooper survive!

Incidentally, they used a genuine three-master for the “Hispaniola,” a beautiful ship, filming key scenes at sea, so the sailing’s all true to life, and the episodes shot high in the rigging are vertiginous. And cackling, mad old Ben Gunn is the real treasure of the island. What a classic! Immortal line: “Them that die’ll be the lucky ones!”