Highly Overrated But Still Good

Excellent adaptation.

A lot of fun.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Based on R.L. Stevenson's classic tale, especially aimed at boy readers. At one level, it's a reluctant buddy story between a devious, sometimes piratical, one-legged rascal(Long John Silver) and a naïve imaginative boy(Jim Hawkins) who worships the charismatic knowledgeable man. It's Jim who found the map to Captain Flint's buried treasure chest, and it's Silver who schemes to steal the map from the gentleman adventurers allied with Jim, and eventually the treasure as well as the ship that takes all to the island. Silver serves as cook aboard the ship, and was given the honor of selecting most of the crew, who will serve as his henchmen. Eventually, Jim overhears Silver talking to his gang about his plan of action, and relays this information to the gentlemen adventurers. Later, on the island, at one point, the other mutineers want to kill Jim, but Silver intercedes. On the voyage home, in reciprocation, Jim releases Silver from custody, so that he may sail off into the unknown, and avoid the hangman's noose that the gentlemen adventures had in store for him.....Wallace Berry makes an appealing charismatic Long John, but it's inevitable that he will be compared with Robert Newton, who took the same role in the 1954 Disney remake. Newton's rascally, but charismatic, Long John is more distinctive from Berry's version, but Berry is also very good. I would say hope to catch both versions some day. Of course, kids these days usually demand color movies, which is where Disney's version shines....Other charismatic characters include Lionel Barrymore as Billy Bones, who supplies the treasure map among his post-humus things., William Mung, as blind Pew, Charles McNunington as Black Dog, and ,of course, skeletal Ben Gun.

In my opinion, the only good thing about this 1934 film was the wonderful relationship that developed between Jackie Cooper and Wallace Beery. The year before they had that same type of relationship when Beery won the Oscar for "The Champ." (He tied Frederic March for "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.")As always, Lionel Barrymore was terrific, but his part was relatively so brief. Despite showing the relationship, I wish that the film had concentrated on the treasure itself. Instead, we see people turning against one another for it.Beery, with his raspy-nasal like intonation, gave a gem of a performance as the pirate with a heart.

It is easy to spot great acting in this movie. Wallace Beary is great cast as Long John Silver. Jackie Cooper gives another fine child performance. As a matter of fact, the entire cast does very well.What might be over looked often is that part of the reason this is so so good is that it is well based on the Robert Lewis Stevenson novel. The rest goes to the most often overlooked Direction of Victor Fleming.Fleming proves in this early film that his work in the films Wizard of Oz & Gone With The Wind is no accident (some critics have called him an erratic Director for hire). He does a great job directing this cast & this story. Some of the sequences show how good a director Fleming really is.After seeing this film recently, I am now convinced that Victor is a much better director than his detractors give him credit for. While this film does not have all the whiz bang special effects that newer pirate films have created, the great acting & directing more than makes up for that.Add to that the amazing fact that this film brings in so much good stuff that it only needs 101 minutes to cover a major novel is enough to make you wonder if some of the new longer films about pirates just aren't very efficient in telling their tales.

When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote TREASURE ISLAND in 1883, he probably thought that it was a good work, but hardly better than his TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY or SILVERADO SQUATTERS or his other coming fiction. It was a good early novel, and that was that. He would grow as a writer, but THE MASTER OF BALLENTRAE, DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE, and WEIR OF HERMISTON were in the future, as was KIDNAPPED. So were the forgotten titles: PRINCE OTTO and THE WRECKERS and THE DYNAMITERS. But his best themes are in TREASURE ISLAND. Besides the expert handling of an adventure tale and a historical novel, there is also the issue of ambiguity in personality. Long John Silver is the first of a line of heroes/anti-heroes including Dr. Henry Jeckyll, Alec Breck Stewart, and James and Henry Durrie who while decent in some ways are weak or worse in other ways. Long John is capable of organizing a mutiny, ordering the murder of a troublesome crew member who won't join his plans, or planning to steal a treasure that does not belong to him. But he is human - he sees young Jim Hawkins as a decent kid, and ends up becoming a surrogate father to him in the novel (even protecting the boy from his less pleasant associates). But Long John cannot avoid (even at his best) being at his worse. To protect Jim, John has to keep him from the other non-mutineers (the Squire, Captain Smollett, Dr. Livesey), so he lies to Jim that they have denounced Jim as a mutineer and won't have anything to do with him. Subsequently, of course, Jim does learn this is a lie - from Dr. Livesey.Jim likewise finds ambiguity in his reactions. He can't help liking (even loving) the sea cook. But he realizes Silver is a bad man. Yet, in the end, he is glad that John escapes (even with some part of the treasure).In his autobiography, Jackie Cooper admits that when he is approached to this day by fans they start asking him about Wallace Beery, and Cooper has to admit that he never was close to Beery socially. They worked well together (Cooper played Beery's son in THE CHAMP, the 1931 film that gave Beery his Oscar). But Beery's personality (in real life) was always "troublesome". Reputedly he left the budding film industry in Chicago in the teens of the 20th Century when he was in danger of a rape charge. In later years his failed marriage to Gloria Swanson was due to his jealousy of her success and his slower success. When he worked with Cooper, he was at his Hollywood zenith as a star and talent, but he was fully aware of it. At one point, Cooper mentions an incident where Beery, he, and some others were eating lunch, and some autograph seekers approached them. While several (including Cooper) did not hesitate to give autographs, Beery refused. Afterwards, when asked about this, Beery said that he was a big star and he did not have to be pestered by this kind of thing.Yet, to the credit of both stars, their performances in TREASURE ISLAND are flawless. They get along very nicely in their roles - Jim Hawkins occasionally saying something kindly that raises the suspicious John Silver's spirits a bit. Beery and Cooper also perform well with the rest of the cast - check the scenes where Beery keeps his less and less friendly mutineer associates in line. He brings some dark humor to the situations (as when a treasure that they dig for is not in the spot they've waisted time at). Cooper's best moment without Beery, of course, is the sequence with Douglas Dumbrille as Israel Hands*, where they have a fight to the death (literally) in the rigging of the ship Hands was supposed to be guarding. Dumbrille, by the way, should be congratulated for his acting here - he manages not to show off that stentorian voice of his, but uses a more weaselly sounding voice quite effectively.Note also Lionel Barrymore's noisy and frightening, but ultimately frightened Captain Billy Bones, forcing the civilians in the Admiral Benbow Inn to sing "Fifteen Men on a Deadman's Chest", but quivering when told the one legged sea cook has been seen nearby. Also note William Mong's "Blind Pew", a scary enough figure for awhile, but at the end rather pathetic given his bizarre fate. Chic Sale's Ben Gunn is properly silly from years of isolation. Otto Kruger's Dr. Livesay is properly heroic seeking to make sure that Jim is not harmed by the mutineers. The cast, in short, is first rate, and matched by Victor Fleming's well handled directing. So the film merits a "10".*Historically, there was a pirate named Israel Hands, though he was dead by the time of TREASURE ISLAND (roughly 1740). Hands was one of Blackbeard's crew in 1716 - 1718, and was the only survivor of that crew from Blackbeard's last battle in 1718. The pirate chief shot him in the knee, wounding him severely enough to keep from fighting. Hands was put ashore before the battle, and watched while his mates were killed or captured (and eventually hanged). Hands died years later as a beggar in London. Oh, and the inn, "the Admiral Benbow" is named for Admiral John Benbow (died 1702) who was a hero of the Navy in the period of the War of the Spanish Succession.