L'isola del tesoro

Treasure Island! One of the best movies of all time. Ok, just one of my favorites. Have watched it millions of times and don't get tired of it. My brother works with fishermen and tugboat fellas and they all love this movie. If the seafarin' folks love it, well then, as a seafarin' tale goes it must be good, eh? Sort of a cult film amongst 'em. Well, at least the sea farin' folks of Ballard and maybe its just that the damp has gotten into their brains.

Speaking of Israel Hands sinking into the depths of the Carribean, try rewinding it while it is playing to see him magically rise from the depths, do an expert back flip and land on the crow's nest. It's really quite funny.

Ok, so why the wierd "one line summary"? It is one of my favorite lines from the movie where Squire Trelawney (sp?) is swearing secrecy to the whole treasure

expidition. We all know how well he kept it. But his face when he says it is quite comical. "I'm as silent . . . as a grave!"

Good job Christian Bale, you'll always be Jim Hawkins to us whether you like it or not. Billy Bo-nes, few can cough and die as disgustingly as you.

If you like Treasure Island, watch "Yellow Beard". Sort of spoofs it in a Monty Python fashion.

In a commentary to the DVD of Treasure Island director Fraser Heston said that the genesis of this film was as a lad he heard Charlton Heston read the story to him. Robert Louis Stevenson's classic is an adventure story that has appealed to know about 15 generations and Fraser got to hear his father read the story playing all the parts with different accents. I'm betting this was the genesis of Charlton Heston's interpretation of Long John Silver. If so this film was about 35 years in the making.

Not to dismiss the Wallace Beery/Jackie Cooper version or the Walt Disney version with Robert Newton and Bobby Driscoll, but Fraser Heston's version is a darker version. The other two concentrated on the relationship that develops between Silver and the lad Jim Hawkins with Silver as rogue and surrogate father figure to straight arrow Hawkins. This version emphasizes a very ruthless Silver and a much older Hawkins than either Driscoll or Cooper were played by Christian Bale. Young Bale is no kid the adults have to protect, he aids in the fighting and is if not mature very capable.

The other parts of the legendary adventure are filled most capably with seasoned veterans like Oliver Reed as Captain Billy Bones, Richard Johnson as Squire Trelawney, Julian Glover as Dr. Livesey, and Isla Blair as the widow Hawkins. Most important and unforgettable is Christopher Lee as Blind Pew. Most of these people worked with Charlton Heston before so it was a family shoot in every sense of the word.

Charlton Heston's interpretation of Long John Silver is unique and maybe closer to what Robert Louis Stevenson had in mind. But what a treat young Fraser Heston had to see that one man show of Treasure Island his father put on. If only cameras had been rolling.

In Fraser Heston's production of Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece, an obvious labor of love by all involved, the classic tale sidesteps another excessively kid-friendly incarnation to live and breathe as Stevenson meant it to. Although its made-for-TV scale pokes through now and then, it does so only momentarily in each case. These little blinks aside, this heartfelt reading of the classic adventure is a worthy piece of work. It's still family-safe but this time there's real menace interwoven with the book's more genteel sensibilities.

How a film begins is often crucial and this `Treasure Island' begins so beautifully, and correctly. A mournful pennywhistle solo ushers in an opening credit sequence that could have been filmed by the painter N.C. Wyeth, whose vision infuses many of the film's frames. I replay this sequence several times whenever I screen this film because it is so evocative. It also perfectly sets the tone for the entire movie; beautifully done. But if they had just held the rousing, though excellent, music back a bit longer and let the sequence walk through on its own legs, it would have been one of the most perfect opening sequences ever filmed.

Charlton Heston as Long John Silver? Don't laugh. His now-familiar voice occasionally surfaces through his 18th century pirate patois, but never detracts. Heston's portrayal is completely effective and is handled with restraint and relish, a fact that is evident the moment his Silver first appears. Silver emerges from the back room of his waterfront Bristol grog shop to confront Christian Bale's uneasy Jim Hawkins who, having walked into Silver's lair, is realizing that he may, quite possibly, not be walking out. Assessing Hawkins through a world-weary expression that has seen it all several times, Silver weighs his options: hear the boy out or drag him into the kitchen and slice him into the salt pork stew, at least.

Heston's Silver is no buffoon. Instead, he is a dangerous man, not unlike the Deke Thornton character in Sam Peckinpah's `The Wild Bunch'; an intelligent person who is forced to endure, and make use of, the human dregs of his time, the best of whom can hold only a dim candle to him. Cunning, quietly remorseless, always several moves ahead of everyone in sight, yet patient in the face of relentless idiocy, this Silver is also a man whose soul has not been completely flogged out of him, by circumstance or the whip. His sincere respect for the innocent courage of Jim Hawkins gives this `Treasure Island' much of its humanity. If you don't feel a pang as Heston's Long John gazes chagrined at the loot, which, for the lack of more far-sighted colleagues, would have been his, you may have the proverbial hole in your soul. `Ah bucko', says Silver to Jim Hawkins near the film's end, after Jim rebuffs Silver's last gentle attempt to manipulate him, `what a pair we would have made'. Oh yeah, absolutely.

All of the book's heroes are portrayed with heartfelt competence; the blustering Squire Trelawney (Richard Johnson), the tack-sharp, impeccably-mannered Doctor Livesey (Julian Glover), the unflinching Captain Smollet (Clive Wood), and Jim Hawkins' arch-boy (Christian Bale in his mid-teens, filled out a bit post `Empire of the Sun', bearing no resemblance to his homicidal yuppie in `American Psycho'). Arrayed against them are the scurviest sea dogs who ever weighed anchor, complete with terrifying teeth and fierce, implied body odor: Oliver Reed's tragic Billy Bones, Christopher Lee's festering Blind Pew, Israel Hands (what a great name), Silver's murderous, cobra-like shipmate, (Michael Halsey), who provides a taste of what Silver himself may have been like in his younger days, and a most convincing Ben Gunn (Nicholas Amer). Peter Postlethwaite, the super-cool big-game hunter in the first sequel to `Jurassic Park', plays the bewildered George Merry, a man who should always flee from even the slightest ambition; someone who makes you happy to still be you, even if your 401K was riding entirely on Enron.

When the time comes for action, it's delivered with conviction. Early on, the tense, hateful confrontation in the Admiral Benbow inn, between the rum-soaked Billy Bones and his scary former shipmate, Black Dog (John Benfield), is beautifully rendered, as is the berserk fight at the island stockade later in the film. To its great credit, the film never tries to be funny, or even light-hearted. It simply forges ahead, telling Stevenson's great story. But near the end comes a scene in which Squire Trelawney confronts Silver, whose schemes are now hopelessly foiled, and attempts to call the old pirate to account. What briefly transpires is the film's only real yuk, but it's a peach.

It's easy to over-romanticize the period in which `Treasure Island' is set; swashbuckling as it may now seem, it was a time before widespread bathing (the future George III's German fiancé had to be told to please take a bath after arriving in England), flush toilets, anesthesia, toothpaste, germ theory, and any notion of social justice. But it was also a time when unbroken forests still covered most of North America, when Pittsburgh was just a rough-hewn, barely defensible French fort in the midst of a trackless wilderness (near the present site of the Pirates baseball stadium; Pirates?, hmmm), a time when, given the courage, adventurous spirits still had real room to move. The slate was still largely clean. Many irreversible mistakes had yet to be made. Anyone with a taste for history and, perhaps, a discernible distaste for certain aspects of our own `advanced' age will relate well to this forthright `Treasure Island'. If you've appreciated Charlton Heston as a movie star, you'll appreciate him even more as an actor. This `Treasure Island' is probably the best that will ever be made. A more `updated' version could certainly be produced; one that spurts more blood and exchanges more bodily fluids, with much of the book's period style and manner stripped out, but it would no longer be Stevenson, just Hollywood.

This version of Stevenson's masterpiece is probably the one that most closely follows the novel.It appears that they must have had a copy alongside when they were writing the script.Oh,we can certainly have criticisms,of inaccuracies,and diversions,but they're so small.Bale is some flat as Jim Hawkins,and he does appear a little dull-witted(which is NOT the same as being stupid)but what of it.He's the closest in age of any interpreter.I've heard people complain of Heston being cast against type as Silver,stating that he's not doing a hero.Nonsense!Silver happens to be an evil hero!Wood's Smollet is a little too young for the character,and Halsey and Coyle are both much too young for theirs(Hands and Morgan are described as rather elderly pirates)but what of it?They do a fine job.The fight at the stockade is much more elaborate than was described in the book,but can we have a Heston film that doesn't have an epic battle?Besides,it's so much fun.And Silver's escape is not as described in the novel,but it's so original,and so much in character,that we have to cheer the old blackguard in his resourcefulness.Get the video,stock up lots of beverages,make lots of popcorn,and settle back for a rousing,rollicking good time.

I have to agree with everyone who has lauded this film as the best adaptation of Stevenson's novel. "Treasure Island" has long been one of my favorite books and this is the first version that comes closest to my vision of the story. Fraser Heston obviously knew and loved this book, it's evident in every frame. The costumes, the sets, the actors and the music all combine to create an unforgettable cinematic adventure. When I first heard that Charlton Heston was going to play Long John Silver, I was skeptical, but his performance was spot on. He was able to communicate the moral ambiguity of Stevenson's character without making him comical. He comes across as a man who is at once dangerous and compelling.

Christian Bale was a great Jim Hawkins, coming closer to the way I pictured him in the book than any actor previously. The scene on the ship when Israel Hands is chasing him up the rigging was exactly the way I envisioned it, with all the urgency and tension it required.

Let me just take this opportunity to say that, while I wasn't familiar with Pete Postlethwaite before this film, his portrayal of George Merry really made me pay attention. All the supporting actors were perfect. Christopher Lee's Blind Pew is the stuff of nightmares and Oliver Reed as Billy Bones looked closest to the way I had always envisioned him.

The musical score by the Chieftains is one of the most perfect for any TV movie I have ever seen, and better than many for big screen films. It's one of the few scores I purchased on CD so that I could just listen to the music.

In spite of a few continuity errors, this film captured perfectly the look and feel of Stevenson's tale. It's one film I never tire of watching and I highly recommend it.