Customer Reviews

Treasure Island [VHS]

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It's a curious irony that a producer as fond of adapting novels in the public domain as Harry Alan Towers should let so many of his films fall into the public domain himself. So it is with his 1972 Anglo-Spanish-Italian co-pro version of Treasure Island, one of his many collaborations with the perennially cash-strapped Orson Welles. The great man may have co-written the script under the pseudonym O.W. Jeeves (alongside five others), but he didn't hang around for the dubbing, which means we see him as Long John Silver but hear Bond villain revoicer par excellence Robert Rietty delivering his dialogue. Still, some of it is good dialogue and, while not attempting an impersonation, Rietty does at least get the style, cadence and intonation of Welles so it's not quite as big a handicap as it might seem at first. Not that he's the only one dubbed - half the multi-national cast are flying (or talking) under false colors, as is the Spanish port that doubles unconvincingly for Bristol Harbor. The film itself isn't an eye patch on the 1934 Wallace Beery-Jackie Cooper version or even the hard-to-find but surprisingly good 1990 Charlton Heston-Christian Bale TV movie, but it's efficient enough time filler without ever hitting the highs, and the early scenes at the Admiral Benbow Inn are fairly atmospheric. Natale Massara's score sounds suspiciously like Roy Budd's impressive work on the previous year's Kidnapped - something that probably was not a coincidence, though since Budd wasn't averse to `borrowing' himself, it's not quite such a brazen act of musical piracy as it may at first seem.

Be warned that the DVDs of this title are all variable in quality, from acceptable to pretty awful.

That classic of children's literature is made into a masterpiece by the use of a very good actor for Jim, the kid, and another very good actor for Lonjohn Silver. Orson Welles in this second part cuts a brilliant performance that gives the film its momentum and its depth. This film, this story is still very attractive for young children, or not so young children, with the question of how young children can invest themselves in adult adventures and enterprises. Children must not be cut off from adult society. They learn more by being involved in this adult society than by simply going to school. How can this be achieved ? We can dream of various means after the film.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU