Scalawag

An amusing and engaging adventure film from 1973 also known as ''Bar Silver''. This was Kirk Douglas's second adventure film from the early-'70s and is a stablemate to the Jules Verne adaptation ''The Light at the Edge of the World'' (1971). It combines Robert Louis Stevenson's novel ''Treasure Island'' with the western. Produced by Douglas's own Bryna company and Italian backers the film features impressive stunt-work and action shots, evocative sea and landscapes: it was filmed in the Balkans between June and September 1972, a talking parrot, the Douglas family's pet black labrador ''Shaft'', hidden treasure, English youngsters Lesley-Anne Down and Mark Lester ("Oliver" (1968)) plus the chubby diminutive Italian-American actor Danny De Vito (''Flyspeck'') while Douglas sports a striped dark blue-and-white t-shirt and leather jerkin and salt-and-pepper beard and hair. He later remarked that the most effective thing in the film was his pirate character's wooden-leg! The early-'70s were pioneering years.

Great movie, fun to watch. Enterteining at his best.

Director-star Kirk Douglas is all ham as 'Peg' in this surprisingly amateurish remake of "Treasure Island" in a western setting. What probably undoes this film more than anything else is the inept editing. Scenes do not transition well at all. Lesley-Anne Down is quite beautiful as Lucy-Ann, and even gets to sing a ballad (probably the film's highlight) written by John Cameron (who provided the film's score). Danny Devito turns up in perhaps his first major film role as a pirate, along with Don Stroud (the villain in "Coogan's Bluff"). Mark Lester's early '70s haircut (or lack of one) is more in keeping with then-mod fashion than with the early 19th century (he had a much shorter coif in the Dickens musical "Oliver"). Mel Blanc provides the voice of the parrot. Filmed in Yugoslavia. Odd picture. Should have been much better. Douglas is a maverick actor, but he plays this one verrrry broadly. At least he seemed to have been genuinely enjoying himself.

What a curious little film. Let me try to describe it to you: a one-legged outlaw in the Wild West takes a couple of kids and a bunch of fellow outlaws in search of buried gold. The plot is basically just a borrowed hotch-potch of ideas from Treasure Island, spruced up unconvincingly with songs, and thinly disguised by transporting it away from the Caribbean to the vast open plains of the Wild West.

There are some well-known faces involved in the muddle. Kirk Douglas plays the main character (he also directed); Mark Lester from Oliver plays one of the kids; Lesley Ann Down plays the other kid; and Danny Devito is in it too as one of the outlaws. For such a collection of talent, you'd have thought there must have been a decent script.... wrong!

Douglas often groans about the film, saying it was ineffective and a bad experience for a first-time director. As much as I like the guy, I can't disagree with him on that score. The acting is OK and the scenery looks nice, but the film just lacks passion and excitement and vibrancy. It was a nice idea, but the execution fails it. Maybe someone will remake it one day and do a much better job.

After Oliver!, I'm surprised anyone ever offered Mark Lester another part in a movie. Kirk Douglas must have felt sorry for him and offered him the part of his young sidekick in his movie Scalawag, in which he starred and directed. In this swashbuckling disaster, Kirk plays a peg-legged pirate with a band of misfits and a parrot. As like any stereotypical pirate, he's in search of treasure. As much as I like Kirk Douglas, I have to think he was having a bad day when he decided to make this movie. It's both incredibly silly and incredibly 1970s, a decade I don't think produced many quality films anyway. The awkward zooms, terrible haircuts, and odd music choices don't stand the test of time, and Scalawag is no different. Unless you make it your mission to watch every single pirate movie ever made, just stick to Robert Newton's films. You've got several to choose from, including Treasure Island and Long John Silver.

DLM Warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie might not your friend. There's a scene in a hot air balloon about ten minutes before the end where the camera spins in a circle, and it will make you sick. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"