Cold Fusion Video Reviews

aka Return to Treasure Island, aka Long John Silver: Return to Treasure Island, aka Long John Silver’s Return to Treasure Island

• Directed by Byron Haskin
• Written by Martin Rackin, based on characters created by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Starring
  • Robert Newton
  • Connie Gilchrist
  • Lloyd Berrell
  • Grant Taylor
  • Kit Taylor
• Produced by Joseph Kaufman

There have been roughly forty movie versions of Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventure novel Treasure Island, but to my knowledge there has only been one direct sequel to one of those movies, and even in this case “direct” may be overstating it. Likely the best known single version is the 1950 Walt Disney feature, with Robert Newton giving a memorably hammy performance as the one-legged pirate Long John Silver. In a coup so terrific you’d suspect Italians were behind it; an outfit called “Treasure Island Pictures Pty. Ltd.” hired original director Byron Haskin and Newton to reprise the role of Silver in their Australian-shot sequel to the book, which was on the public domain. The feature further served to usher in a television series by the same backers and featuring much of the same cast, The Adventures of Long John Silver, which gave Newton even more opportunity to hobble around with one leg tied back, saying, “Arrrr!”

“Me timbers again be shiverin’ — I’ve got the DTs!”

As we begin this movie, Silver has situated himself more or less permanently in a pub somewhere in the Spanish colonies which caters to rough seamen. There, he receives word through the pirates with whom he surrounds himself that another buccaneer, Captain Mendoza, has waylaid a ship bound to the colony from England and captured not only the Governor’s daughter, but a young man by the name of Jim Hawkins, Silver’s compatriot from the original story. He thus offers his services to the Governor (Harvey Adams) to trap Mendoza and return his daughter. Silver’s motives aren’t all altruistic, though; he’s gotten his hands on a map showing a second treasure cache on Treasure Island buried by the notorious pirate Captain Flint, and the map states that only with the further instructions to be found on a gold medallion can the treasure be found — a medallion the Silver knows is currently around Jim’s neck.

And what follows is almost a hopeless mishmash masquerading for a story. One of the reasons that the novel Treasure Island still maintains a measure of popularity is that it’s a simple tale well told, the straightforward story of a quest to find buried treasure with pirates among the crew. Long John Silver is by contrast an early but distinct case of Hollywooditis; in an effort to create a sequel to Treasure Island, every possible idea was thrown into the script and all were played out simultaneously, with an effect not unlike a dozen kindergarten students each trying at the top of his/her lungs to get the teacher’s attention. Rather than a chronological plot synopsis, then, I’ll give you here the broad subplots which compete with each other:

The best defense against pirate breath is some pirate breath of your own.

Rescuing the Governor’s daughter. A very serviceable hook on which to hang a narrative (as the first Pirates of the Caribbean feature demonstrated), but the daughter is rescued by the half-hour mark, and thus effectively vanishes from the plot.

– The rivalry between Silver and Mendoza. Silver hooks Mendoza into a plot to double-cross the Governor, but Mendoza gets double-crossed as well; Silver makes off with the treasure from one of the Governor’s warehouses and pins the blame on Mendoza, and Mendoza vows to “peel Silver’s skin like a mango.”

Milk. Does a booty good.

– Jim’s medallion. At first, Silver just wants to get his hands on it, but I guess seeing Jim again makes him more tender-hearted (the relationship between Silver and Jim is cozier in just about every movie adaptation than it is in the original novel), so he takes him on as a partner on this second expedition to Treasure Island. (Why was Jim at sea again in the first place? Never explained.)

– Ships and more ships. Silver worked his Rube Goldbergian scheme to rescue the Governor’s daughter precisely so that he could knock over the Governor’s warehouse, blame it on Mendoza, and then use the booty to purchase a ship for this Treasure Island expedition. However, Silver’s men, who are charged with transporting this treasure while Silver takes the daughter back, lose it all in gambling and fighting, getting themselves thrown in prison as well. But it turns out that the captain of the Thistle, the ship that’s supposed to transport Jim back to England, Captain MacDougall (George Simpson-Little), needs to replace his entire crew for the return voyage, so Silver promises to get him all the men he needs. One jailbreak later and the Thistle is entirely manned with pirates. Then Jim gets wind of the proposed mutiny (in much the same manner as he did in Treasure Island) and warns the captain, and Silver and his prospective mutineers get marooned on an island, along with Jim for having the temerity to ask for clemency. But it just so happens that this island is Mendoza’s secret base, so Silver steals his ship. (One assumes that the Thistle, meanwhile, having only a skeleton crew aboard now, is easy pickings for some other pirate, I guess.)

Great. Even stinky pirate guys get more female attention than I ever got.

– Callbacks to Treasure Island. When Silver, Jim and party finally make it to Treasure Island, an hour into the movie, they find several of the pirates who were marooned there on the last voyage who are none too glad to see them. One among them is Israel Hands (Rod Taylor of The Time Machine), whom Jim had shot and supposedly killed before; instead, he was stricken blind and has a desperate hatred for Jim, so when he finally discovers that Jim is with them, he sets after him with murderous intent. That’s fine when they’re in a cave, so that Hands’ blindness isn’t an impediment, but when the long chase gets outside, it becomes harder and harder to swallow that an able-bodied twelve-year-old can’t shake off a blind man running through the jungle.

– Marriage humor! Purity (Connie Gilchrist), proprietress of the pub in which Silver has set up shop, has her eye on marrying Silver no matter how many times he bellows, “Belay!” In fact, part of the reason for this second expedition to Treasure Island is to get out from under her nuptial plans. Purity even gets left at the altar — twice! Komedy! And she’s trying to get Silver to give up rum, so there are plenty of scenes of him being forced to drink milk! Ha!

“Um, could we choose some other part of the playground for our game of Blind Man’s Bluff?”

With this many disparate elements co-existing uneasily in the screenplay, the only thing holding it all together is Newton’s performance as Long John Silver, and that wears thin mighty quick as he out-emotes everyone else off the screen. Newton leers, growls, bugs his eyes out, peppers his dialogue with gratuitous piratical references, and misplaces his Rs (“Young Jim Harkins!”) to the point of self-parody. A mannered performance like that would be appropriate for a supporting character but grows overwhelmingly tedious in the star, much like salt works well as a seasoning but proves terribly unpalatable as a main dish. (I should rework this paragraph so that it ends with a clever reference to a “salty sea dog,” but I’m too lazy, so we’ll just deem it reworked, okay?)

In the novel Treasure Island, when Silver finally absconds with his portion of the treasure before being brought to justice, Jim Hawkins says, “I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply quit of him.” Long John Silver only proves that assessment.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 20
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 17
• dream sequences: 0
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• dwarfs: 1
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Doctor Who: 1