L'île au trésor

It is easy to spot great acting in this movie. Wallace Beary is great cast as Long John Silver. Jackie Cooper gives another fine child performance. As a matter of fact, the entire cast does very well.

What might be over looked often is that part of the reason this is so so good is that it is well based on the Robert Lewis Stevenson novel. The rest goes to the most often overlooked Direction of Victor Fleming.

Fleming proves in this early film that his work in the films Wizard of Oz & Gone With The Wind is no accident (some critics have called him an erratic Director for hire). He does a great job directing this cast & this story. Some of the sequences show how good a director Fleming really is.

After seeing this film recently, I am now convinced that Victor is a much better director than his detractors give him credit for. While this film does not have all the whiz bang special effects that newer pirate films have created, the great acting & directing more than makes up for that.

Add to that the amazing fact that this film brings in so much good stuff that it only needs 101 minutes to cover a major novel is enough to make you wonder if some of the new longer films about pirates just aren't very efficient in telling their tales.

I have seen most versions of Treasure Island. This is one of my favorites. Not what I would call erotic in any shape or form. Good Beery and Coogan vehicle with plenty of pirates and treasure hunting as other versions. The story line is not much different than any other. It seems a bit brighter and more lighthearted. Although none are very true to the story this one is a decent adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson book. I happen to like the casting of Lionel Barrymore, Otto Kruger, Lewis Stone, and Nigel Bruce in this gem. Their defense of the Island Stockade is exciting. It has more replayability than all but a couple. It is great fun for the whole family for a lazy afternoon. A notch above most except perhaps the one with Charlton Heston. I certainly hope to see this on DVD since I would add it to my collection.

... based on Robert Louis Stevenson's book, from MGM and director Victor Fleming. Jackie Cooper stars as Jim Hawkins, a boy working in his mother's seaside inn. One night a crusty old sea dog named Billy Bones (Lionel Barrymore) arrives with a large chest which he zealously guards. When circumstances lead to it being opened, a treasure map is inside, which inspires Squire Trelawney (Nigel Bruce) to sponsor a sea voyage to look for the hidden booty. Jim goes along for the journey, and befriends a one-legged sea veteran named Long John Silver (Wallace Beery) who may turn out to be more than just a ship's cook.

I read Stevenson's book as a kid, but I never watched any of the many film adaptations until fairly recently, when I watched the 1990 TV movie version starring a young Christian Bale as Jim and Charlton Heston as Long John Silver. This MGM version manages to do more in less time, and I liked Beery in the Silver role much more than Heston. Cooper, on the other hand, gives an awful "movie-kid" performance that pulled me out of the story with almost every line he uttered. I tend to be overly harsh on kids in movies (I'm not a fan), so letting that slide, this is an enjoyable adventure tale with excellent costumes and settings. This was a big hit for MGM, and helped spur a boom in nautical films and other period adventure movies, such as the following year's Captain Blood and Mutiny on the Bounty.

Every generation sees a new adaption of Robert Louis Stevenson's eternal classic Treasure Island. It's a timeless adventure story that will always appeal to the young and young at heart. And it has one of the great acting roles of all time, one you can really eat a whole living room set with and still be in bounds.

For a scene stealing actor like Wallace Beery playing Long John Silver is no stretch at all. He dominates this version over the entire cast and as he's in most of the scenes after Lionel Barrymore as Captain Billy Bones dies and leaves his map to that intrepid band of treasure hunters. Barrymore gets his innings in as well as the bloodthirsty pirate captain who double-crossed his crew and had the presence of mind to die in Dorothy Peterson and Jackie Cooper's inn.

It's a real toss up between who is loudest, biggest eyerolling, larger than life Silver, be it Wallace Beery or Robert Newton in the later version done by Walt Disney. Both these men were remarkably similar in acting styles. But Beery was a cheap soul who had few friends in Hollywood and Newton was the life of that alcoholic party that was his life. I wouldn't want to choose which was better.

Beery and Cooper had their act down pat from The Champ. It's always a source of amazement to me how Cooper couldn't stand Beery and Beery among his dislikes was children in general. Yet you'd never know it seeing them together as Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver.

Otto Kruger as Dr. Livesey, Nigel Bruce as Squire Trelawney, and Lewis Stone as Captain Smollett are perfectly cast in their roles. But they really have trouble keeping up with Beery.

MGM gave the film the usual high gloss production values and Treasure Island is one of those films that always seems to be so right for screen that few variations are ever made on the book. A great tribute to the visual quality of Stevenson's writing.

And you can enjoy this and the Disney version for generations to come.

Victor Flemming, famous helmer for bigger films such as Gone With The Wind, conducts this adventure story with a pleasant, confidant ease, if not a touch of true inspiration.

Wallace Beery is brilliant as Long John Silver while Jackie Cooper as Jim plays the perfect sounding board to Beery's loud, large, charismatic performance.

Faithful to Mr. Louis Stevenson's chirography of the same tile; in this writer's humble opinion this incarnation of the film captures, most closely, the tone of the original novel - maybe it being closest to the novel chronologically can account for that.

Beery delivers a truly classic American performance here, that anyone, even the most media jaded of our day, should have fun following the old tar and his young friend in their adventures across this terraqueous globe.