L'isola del tesoro

I love this film! It is so great! I was sitting on my couch eating Ruffles potato chips when this film called TREASURE ISLAND came on! I was caught up in it all the way! I especially love the way Maria Rohm plays Mrs. Hawkins! She is so sinister in her role that it makes me glad! I hope that this film will come on again! I love the smell of it!

In my childhood, this was a perennial on Italian TV over Christmas - but, somehow, I never got to watch it! It's surely the least of the three most renowned film versions of the R.L. Stevenson classic but, in itself, is decent enough...if still mainly interesting for the contribution (both as actor and writer) of Orson Welles.

Welles' presence alone elevates any film he appears in - though he's quite restrained here (certainly in comparison to Robert Newton) and, unwisely, adopts perhaps the silliest accent since THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1948)! As for his script - co-written, under the pseudonym O.W. Jeeves, with Wolf Mankowitz - it's reasonably faithful to both the spirit and letter of Stevenson's original. However, the low-budget hurts the overall effort (Welles must have identified with such a predicament, as his own films were too often plagued by compromise!) and the 'modern' score composed by Natale Massara is quite inappropriate.

Still, despite a good cast - including Kim Burfield (unexceptional but not bad as Jim Hawkins), Walter Slezak (as Squire Trelawney), Lionel Stander (as Billy Bones), Paul Muller (as Blind Pew) and Maria Rohm (as Mrs. Hawkins) - it's essentially a 'kiddie' film and is, therefore, in sharp contrast with most of producer Harry Alan Towers' output (particularly his collaborations with Jess Franco)!

At first glance, Orson Welles did indeed seem to be woefully mis-cast in this bastardized [French, Italian, Spanish, British, West German and who knows what else] version of the Stevenson classic. Fortunately, by the second or third viewing you start to focus less on Welles articulation and more on the film itself. It is a menacing version. From the moment ships' cook Silver opens the galley window with his crutch and demands 'Three cheers for Cap'n Smollett!' this version is dripping with evil. And Welles is just the actor [and his mumbling delivery is deliberately utilized] to bring that evil into sharp focus. Kim Burfield is superb as Jim Hawkins [a kid alternately scared-to-death and naively cocky] , and even when Silver asserts that 'I thinks gold-dust of this here boy!' you know the kid's in trouble. That international crew of pirates brings an air of realism to the production [even if their lips aren't always moving in synchronization with the spoken dialogue] which an all-English crew wouldn't have imparted, and Jean Lefebvre's somewhat dazed Ben Gunn is in fine contrast to Geoffrey Wilkinson's loopy Disney version. Natale Massara's score is wonderful, though apparently there never was a soundtrack ['and more's the pity'], and the cinematography is magnificent. My only two criticisms are that Lionel Stander is badly mis-cast as Billy Bones [the guy still sounded like exactly what he was: a tough-guy from the Bronx], and the pirates' treasure-hunting seems much-too-much like they're out for a leisurely Sunday after-dinner stroll. It definitely lacks urgency. This said, I would rank this version almost on a par with the Disney/Newton version, and well worth owning and watching again and again.

An interesting low-key adventure film adapted from Stevenson's novel Treasure Island. Filmed in '72 in Italy, England and Spain - the Port of Bristol scenes were filmed at Garrucha, Almeria while the fort-coastal footage was filmed at Mojacar also in Spain. The Georgian settings, period detail and costumes are sumptuous albeit photographed with a slightly subdued pastel and grainy patina by the ace Italian cameraman, Cecilio Paniagua. The tropical island has a mellow pastel lemony colour. The naturalistic and humanist aspects of 17th/18th- Century life - the period of Cook, Bach etc is very much to the fore. Young curlyhaired English actor, Kim Burfield shows purpose and is charming. Orson Welles was allegedly drunk in the dubbing room in Rome. The scene where the adventurers hit the jackpot relating to the bursting forth of the bounty from the cave wall is evocative. The early-'70s were pioneering years.

Treasure Island with O Wells is simply the best adaptation of the Stevenson story ever done. Why ? Beside the great play of Wells, and others good actors, i would say that the movie keep alive the spirit of the book which is the one of people who like the old seaman story, who like the wind, the sea, the waves, this touch of tough adventure and sea. BUT MORE important than anything else, the movie keeps and makes everyone feel strongly this specific young spirit with the which one Stevenson himself started his book : spirit which is necessary to enjoy this sort of story. Really better than the one of Walt Disney ( too sugary ), this Treasure Island will enjoy people who like to be told a story like when one read the book for hours and hours, unable to leave it. Or like children, exactly the expectation of Stevenson, who told too about the young of his time : "may be too wise young..." "Too wise", meaning unable to taste the spirit of adventure and ability to dream, sail full of wind and salt ! The music is great too. N.