Le pirate des mers du sud

After Walt Disney's relatively well-produced version of "Treasure Island" (1950), timber-shivering Robert Newton (as "Long John Silver") returns. He is made to rescue kidnapped Kit Taylor (as Jim Hawkins) along with a damsel in distress, avoid the marriage-minded Connie Gilchrist (as Purity Pinker), and embark on a far less satisfying treasure hunt. This slight, long, and disappointing sequel rests its laurels almost entirely on Mr. Newton's top-heavy characterization. Late in the running time, young Hawkins and a vision-impaired Rodney "Rod" Taylor (as Israel Hands) give Newton a run for the money. Another "Return to Treasure Island" (also 1954), starring Tab Hunter, was even more peripheral to the original. Like Newton says, "Tis a long time since Treasure Island."

**** Long John Silver (12/16/54) Byron Haskin ~ Robert Newton, Kit Taylor, Connie Gilchrist, Rod Taylor

This Australian production made four years after Walt Disney's version of Treasure Island has Robert Newton reprising his role of Long John Silver. Returning characters from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island are Jim Hawkins and Israel Hands.

The Disney version of Treasure Island was a once in a lifetime mating of an actor so perfect for the role he was cast in. Robert Newton was a man who needed a firm directorial hand normally, but Long John Silver is one of those larger than life parts where the sky isn't even the limit when it comes to chewing scenery. Newton throws himself into this role just as he did in Treasure Island and again in Blackbeard the Pirate, he was put on this planet to play pirates.

This film finds Long John rescuing the Governor of Jamaica's daughter and then returning to Treasure Island for more treasure. Jim Hawkins, who apparently never went back to the UK, is also along for the ride. On Treasure Island Newton has to deal with another pirate captain named Mendoza and Israel Hands from his old crew.

Now all of us who know the story of Treasure Island know that Jim Hawkins killed Israel Hands in the story. But it turns out not to be the case. Seems that he only blinded him and Hands has been living on Treasure Island ever since waiting for the return of Silver and Hawkins. In this film, Hands is played by young Rod Taylor in his second film and under his full name of Rodney Taylor. As resourceful as Taylor makes Hands, there ain't no way I believe a blind man survived on an uninhabited island for years.

Another character is introduced here, a woman who runs a waterfront dive named Purity played by Connie Gilchrist. She has hopes of marrying the incorrigible reprobate Silver, but no such luck. Gilchrist and Newton's scenes are very cute and are more than faintly reminiscent of Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler.

The success of this film led to a TV series Long John Silver with both Newton and Gilchrist and young Kip Taylor as Jim Hawkins. It might have gone on longer than a season, but for Robert Newton's death from acute alcoholism. Read David Niven's memoir Bring on the Empty Horses for a fine account of a man much loved by friends and colleagues, but with a deadly weakness for the 'craiture' as the Irish refer to it.

Long John Silver is a film with a lot of weaknesses in plot and structure, but carried by the indomitable Robert Newton and the strength of his career role.

Having already played Blackbeard in Hollywood a couple of years earlier, Robert Newton travelled Down Under with director Byron Haskin to reprise his earlier star turn as Long John Silver, still searching for hidden treasure in an elaborate production in colour & 'scope that paved the way for a TV series.

Jim Hawkins seems scarcely a day older, courtesy of being played by a new young actor, Kit Taylor (son of Grant Taylor, who plays 'Patch'), while a hirsute Rod Taylor as mad, blind Israel Hands - a role previously played by Geoffrey Keen in the Disney version - makes Newton look restrained by comparison.

The scene with him and Master Jim shot on a piece of spectacular coastline near Sydney possibly confirms that the generally studio-bound look of the rest of the film probably owed more to Newton's inability by then to go out on location than budgetary constraints.

There is not much new in this sequel to "Treasure Island", which has Robert Newton return in the role of "Long John Silver" and getting involved in new adventures that nevertheless have a familiar feel to them, but it is still an entertaining movie. Made four years after the original, it has Kit Taylor replacing Bobby Driscoll as Jim Hawkins, but the relationship between the characters is still much the same. Newton is the main strength, since he captures his character very well, and he is fun to watch even when there is not a lot else going on.

The story has Long John meeting up again with Jim and with various old friends and old rivals, while carrying out his usual assortment of schemes. It all has a familiar feel to it, with some of the same settings and many of the same plot devices getting recycled, and quite a few references to events and characters from the original story.

If you enjoyed "Treasure Island", you would probably enjoy "Long John Silver" as well. Although it doesn't have much new material, it has plenty of adventure and the same kinds of scheming and counter-scheming. You could also enjoy it perfectly well, assuming that you have an interest in the genre, without having seem the first movie. The occasional links with the original are probably easy enough to figure out, from the context and/or from a passing acquaintance with the story from literature or elsewhere.

Flavorful but overlong sequel to the Walt Disney version of TREASURE ISLAND (1950), which had given Robert Newton his trademark role of R.L. Stevenson's one-legged pirate Long John Silver; unsurprisingly, being an independent production – filmed on a low budget in Australia – it wasn't up to the standards of the earlier film (or the equally well-regarded 1934 MGM version with Wallace Beery as Silver), despite employing the same actor and director!

While I haven't watched the Disney or MGM films in years, the pirate lingo here – and particularly Newton's hammy delivery of it – got to be a bit too much after a while; besides, Kit Taylor is pretty bland as Jim Hawkins (stepping in for Bobby Driscoll) and the DeLuxe color rather unattractive and cheap-looking (though the poor-quality print I watched didn't help matters any)! Slow-starting and altogether juvenile (particularly the subplot involving Connie Gilchrist, a hearty tavern-keeper hellbent on reforming – and marrying – Silver!), the film picks up steam during the second half with the pirates' return to Treasure Island (where they find Israel Hands, played by Rod Taylor – but I'm damned if I recognized him! – still alive but now a blindman and craving Hawkins' blood), which also serves as the site of their showdown with a rival band of cutthroats, headed by a Spaniard nicknamed "El Toro". Still, it's Newton's show all the way: his scenery-chewing antics make the film bearable, and he even went on to reprise his role yet again for a TV series