TREASURE ISLAND, Robert Louis Stevenson’s oft-told tale of pirates, sails again in the 1950 Technicolor version done at the command of Walt Disney who laid on $1,800,000 for filming in England. A success with critics and the public, it betters the creaky 1934 voyage by a good measure, with a fine look from cameraman Freddie Young and a template-setting performance by the gloriously hamming Robert Newton in full broadside growl as ‘Long John Silver’.  *

Bobby Driscoll, 1937-1968

England, 1765. Young ‘Jim Hawkins’ (12-year-old Bobby Driscoll) joins the crew of the Hispaniola on a search for buried buccaneer treasure, marked on a map that’s fallen into Jim’s possession. The hurriedly hired crew includes peg-legged tavern cook ‘John Silver’ (Newton) who provides the captain and his few trusted associates with some veteran but suspect seamen who ‘bear watching’. In the ensuing ruckus, innocent Jim grows up a notch or three. “Arrgh!”

No-nonsense adaptation written by Lawrence Edward Watkin (many Uncle Walt flicks including Darby O’Gill And The Little People), directed by Byron Haskin (The War Of The Worlds), this doesn’t shy from some fairly bloody action (especially for Disney) and has an able cast to issue all manner of salty proclamations.

Finlay Currie, 1878-1968

A couple of sore points. One, minor but irksome, is Geoffrey Wilkinson going overboard (for the kids, maybe?) to be nigh-on excruciating as ‘Ben Gunn’. More troublesome is that while the rest of the all-male cast (not a tavern wench in sight, arrgh) hail from Britain, Bobby Driscoll is glaringly American. Still, give the lad a hand for tryin’; the ill-fated Driscoll’s later life makes a tragic counterpoint to his youthful exuberance here. A better choice, if they were going to use a child actor from the States, would’ve been Dean Stockwell, but he was busy doing another adventure, Kim, learning the ropes—and a few other tips—from Errol Flynn.

First and foremost this handsome-looking version is dominated by Newton’s gusty Long John, and his endlessly imitated scenery-gulping would be the one “pirate” that aliens would pick out as representative specimen of that larcenous ilk.

Disney (releasing thru RKO) counted doubloons that tallied up $6,000,000, 41st place in a year that saw location-shot derring-do in the durable company of King Solomon’s Mines, Kim and The Black Rose. 

With Walter Fitzgerald (fun huffing and puffing as ‘Squire Trelawney’)), Basil Sydney, Denis O’Dea, Finlay Currie (great as ‘Billy Bones’), Ralph Truman, Geoffrey Keen, John Laurie, Francis de Wolff, John Gregson. 96 minutes.

* The resounding success of this, Disney’s first all-live action movie, commenced his ‘Britain run’ that yielded The Story Of Robin Hood And His Merrie Men, The Sword And The Rose and Rob Roy The Highland Rogue. 

Four years later Newton reprised his role in Long John Silver, also directed by Haskin.

Stevenson’s 1883 story has been done dozens of times in various types of formats and countries. The 1934 version doesn’t hold up well, but there are many fans of the 1990 TV telling with Charlton Heston, Christian Bale, Oliver Reed and Christopher Lee.

Robert Newton, 1905-1956