Treasure Island (1950)
Not to state the obvious, but I haven't read the Robert Louis Stevenson novel
this movie is based on. Heck, I haven't even read the Classics Illustrated version or seen that awful Muppet version of this, but I don't see why that
necessarily is a bad thing, since I have read the greatest pirate novel of all
time, George MacDonald Fraser's Pyrates. This leaves Treasure Island to scrap it out for number two on the all-time buccaneer list and if the movie
was any indication, then there really shouldn't be any contest, because it's
jammed packed with every boy's fantasy about what pirating is all about. Actually, this being a Walt Disney movie, I was let down a tad by this one. I
mean, there wasn't an asinine song and dance number to be had, not one crappy
comic relief sidekick, and no bloodless, goofy violence to give the kids in the
crowd the idea that pirates were lovable scamps that talked funny and needed a
bath. That's not to say that Long John Silver wasn't someone to be admired for
the way he played both ends against the middle and eventually won the respect
of the kid whose throat he periodically threatened to slit. The way that Robert Newton wears the role of the one-legged pirate like the
filthy three days growth of beard he perpetually sports throughout the film
will leave you wondering why anyone else would bother tying their leg up for
this part ever after. He nails everything perfectly in this performance, from
the sweaty greed to the snarling "avast ye mateys" blather you'll be running
around repeating for weeks to come all the way down to the way he squinted,
winked, and bugged his eyes out depending on the situation.  If Newton was the only good thing about this one, it would still be worth your
time, but this movie is an hour and a half of pirate action and treachery, with
that dastardly Long John Silver seemingly one step ahead of the game the entire
time. Of course he's not exactly going up against Rommel or anything. In
fact, the biggest competition he gets is from little Jim Hawkins.
Generally, I hope that these little twerps in Disney movies run into a lonely
priest or something, but this Jim Hawkins (Bobby Driscoll) is one of the
toughest little buggers you'll ever see. This surprised me since the last time
I saw Bobby, he was wearing a velvet suit and crying about getting beat up by
some white trash in Song Of The South. Jim Hawkins is a different story. He befriends pirates, gets to go on a
treasure hunt, battles the pirates, single-handedly rescues the ship from them,
takes a knife in the shoulder and shoots one pirate in the face. If this isn't
a role model for today's youth, I don't know who is. You can dang sure bet that
if all the liberal busy bodies who feel guilty for choosing their careers over
raising their kids would have infested olden times like pirates, they'd be
wringing their hands about this kid waving a gun around, even though he ain't
come within spitting distance of puberty. Fighting pirates and taking a shiv for the team ultimately proved easier to
deal with than real life for Bobby though. This was a dude that was the voice
of Peter Pan and was in a bunch of Disney movies at the time, work that earned
him a special Oscar, so he wasn't just some Macaulay Culkin with one or two
fluke hits under his belt. But once Bobby grew up and Disney kicked him to the
curb, he ended up all strung out and eventually croaked in New York City at the
ripe old age of 31 (Are you paying attention Jonathan Taylor Thomas?). His
corpse wasn't even identified until a year later. Somehow Disney didn't manage
to squeeze that info onto the back of the video box. Now then, you've got yourself pirates, a great Long John Silver, and a decent
young kid with a sordid destiny. Everything else is Milkbones. Actually, the
script is smartly written and this movie doesn't suffer from Spare Tire
Syndrome (you know - where the middle gets all bloated and saggy and you leave
the room to take a dump for about twenty minutes, but just leave the door open
and the movie playing so you can hear it and keep it moving until you get to
the big finale when the action starts picking up again). I should have guessed that this was a manly movie when right off the bat, some
scalawag named Black Dog comes into Jim's bar (don't ask me how a ten year old
is running a bar - this is the 1700s after all) and demands a double rum. I've
seen enough bottles of Captain Morgan's to know that rum is a pirate's booze of
choice. Black Dog is looking for Captain Billy Bones (I think this movie had probably
the single greatest collection of character names that I'd ever seen), but Jim
plays dumb. Billy is really there and he's an old timer that's about to
shuffle off to that big pirate cove in the sky, but not before he can give his
treasure map to Jim. This is the classic treasure map that has locations such
as Spyglass Hill and Treasure Island (if I was hiding a ton of booty on an
island, I probably wouldn't call it Treasure Island, but then again I'm a
landlubber) and gives directions as to where a bunch of gold is hidden.  Before he croaks, Billy Bones manages to warn Jim Hawkins about a one-legged
pirate. Of course, once Jim runs into Silver, he doesn't exactly trip over
himself to tell his squire or captain that the dude they hired as the sea cook
is actually a blighter who's better at cooking up doublecrosses than ham and
eggs. Many times when LJS was busy trickifying people on the boat and on
Treasure Island, I was reminded of Tommy Lee Jones' immortal line from the
first Steven Seagal Under Siege movie where the ponytailed pudge played a special forces guy turned chef:
"This is not the work of a cook," Tommy kept whining as Steve single-handedly
dismantled Tommy's convoluted plan to hijack a really big boat for some reason.
Jim shows the squire and the friendly neighborhood doctor the map and the
squire immediately decides that he is going to launch a secret voyage to
Treasure Island to recover the loot. The squire is a bit of a buffoon as he
has a habit of babbling about how they're looking for treasure as they stroll
along the docks so that every shady character can hear. I doubt that this
matters a whole lot, since he's gone and hired Long John Silver to be his cook
and then tells Silver to go ahead and round up a crew, because the captain is
taking too long with all these background checks and stuff. Yo Jim! Probably be a good time mention that LJS might be a pirate! For
whatever reason, Jim is taken in by LJS and he befriends the pirate. It
probably helps that LJS gives him a gun to carry. What kid wouldn't pal around
with a guy that gives him a rod to protect himself on a long voyage in search
of pirate treasure? Besides, it's been my experience that you want to be on
the good side of the guy that's cooking your food. I knew a guy who worked in a fast food joint and he used to piss in the
pickles, so I studiously avoided that particular eatery. Of course this was
the same guy who spray painted his name on his pick-up truck so that he could
find it in the parking lot. And the restaurant was also the one where the
health inspector had a heart attack and died, so not going there was kind of a
no-brainer I guess. Silver picks all his cronies to be the crew and once the voyage gets under
way, it's clear that Silver is going to have his hands full keeping the pirates
under control. He's constantly challenged for leadership by George Merry and
you know that somewhere down the road it's going to have to be settled at the
end of a musket. Silver goes to work bettering the odds for himself, getting
guys loyal to the captain to turn to the dark side and those that don't get
washed overboard in the middle of the night (Whoops! Watch your step, matey!). Jim eventually hears of Silver's plot to mutiny and take the treasure for
himself while hiding in an apple barrel (huh?) and finally tattles to the
captain, squire, and doctor. They figure out that they've got like eight guys
total on their side, while the pirates have the rest of the crew. In spite of
their efforts, the ship is taken over by the pirates and the good guys have to
escape to a stockade on Treasure Island. Along the way Jim gets taken hostage
by LJS and escapes only to run into a guy that was marooned by Silver five
years before.  Once on the island, the good guys try and stave off the bad guys, Jim liberates
their boat, gets caught by LJS, and is saved by LJS from the rest of the
pirates who want to gut him like a pig. What makes this movie great is that
LJS is only saving Jim because he sees it as an opportunity to save his own
bacon if the good guys eventually win out over the bad guys. They do and
Silver is promised that he'll get a fair trial in England and that Jim and the
doctor will be character witnesses for him ("Uh, he really treated that parrot
well."). Just so you have no doubt that Long John Silver isn't a pirate
through and through, he manages to hijack the row boat they're taking him back
to the ship in and make his escape.
Since this was a Disney movie, they felt obliged to play up the respect and
buddy-aspect between Jim and LJS at the end with Jim helping Silver escape and
Silver not being able to shoot him in the face. It's nice to see that a crusty
old salt like Long John Silver deciding that he doesn't have it in him to shoot
an unarmed ten year old kid at point blank range in the head can pass for
"sentiment" , but the fact that this is as close as the movie ever gets to
slathering on the goody-goody stuff shows you that this movie was made before
Disney really became the play it safe Disney we know it today. In fact the violence in this movie earned it the dreaded PG rating (Gasp!) when
it was re-released years later, prompting Disney to cut the violence down so
that it could bring you the G rated adventures of Long John Silver. As the box
proudly states, this is the real version, so you end up with a body count that
any desensitized consumer of violent entertainment would feel comfortable with. The locations are highlighted by the early Technicolor effort and everything is
just dripping with pirate atmosphere, with pirates drunk on rum, big ships,
treasure chests of gold, and a seaside village. Unlike, the Sunday school
version of the Revolutionary War presented in Johnny Tremain, Treasure Island has an ornery streak running through it that presents a fairly adult look at
pirates and their penchant for treachery, drink, and booty. (Of course since
this is a boy's wish fulfillment movie and not a man's, the only booty these
pirates are interested in are doubloons.)
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