TREASURE ISLAND is the sort of film that cries out for Technicolor since it deals with pirates, treasure maps, ships at sea and a fort under attack--the sort of thing done in scores of other movies (and other versions of the story), but usually in color.
Here the B&W photography is handsome enough, the sets look sturdy, the ship masts are full and the acting is strictly from the '30s era of overacting--not too much of a flaw in this case because the story cries for some good old melodramatic turns.
During the opening sequences, LIONEL BARRYMORE acts up a storm as Billy Bones, the man who has the whole tavern singing "Sixteen Men On a Dead Man's Chest". His look of astonishment at seeing his assassin enter the tavern is priceless. Unfortunately, his role is a comparatively brief one.
JACKIE COOPER resorts to too much pouting (in Shirley Temple style) to be truly effective as Jim Hawkins but does a decent enough job; WALLACE BEERY steals every scene he's in as the one-legged Long John Silver with a parrot on his shoulder; LEWIS STONE and NIGEL BRUCE do well enough in more conventional roles as high-blooded men from aristocracy; and even OTTO KRUGER, an actor I'm not particularly fond of, does one of his best jobs as Dr. Livesey, protector of the Hawkins boy, and DOUGLAS DUMBRILLE does a brilliant job as a master villain.
Among the pirates, there's a good sense of adventure all the way through and the Robert Louis Stevenson story is faithfully rendered except for the sentimental ending. Nevertheless, it never quite overcomes the feeling that you're watching actors going through the motions of a pirate tale and lacks the lusty swordplay and swashbuckling fun of another sea epic, CAPTAIN BLOOD, which came out a year later. Michael Curtiz, it seems, had a better handle on this sort of adventure than Victor Fleming.
Here the B&W photography is handsome enough, the sets look sturdy, the ship masts are full and the acting is strictly from the '30s era of overacting--not too much of a flaw in this case because the story cries for some good old melodramatic turns.
During the opening sequences, LIONEL BARRYMORE acts up a storm as Billy Bones, the man who has the whole tavern singing "Sixteen Men On a Dead Man's Chest". His look of astonishment at seeing his assassin enter the tavern is priceless. Unfortunately, his role is a comparatively brief one.
JACKIE COOPER resorts to too much pouting (in Shirley Temple style) to be truly effective as Jim Hawkins but does a decent enough job; WALLACE BEERY steals every scene he's in as the one-legged Long John Silver with a parrot on his shoulder; LEWIS STONE and NIGEL BRUCE do well enough in more conventional roles as high-blooded men from aristocracy; and even OTTO KRUGER, an actor I'm not particularly fond of, does one of his best jobs as Dr. Livesey, protector of the Hawkins boy, and DOUGLAS DUMBRILLE does a brilliant job as a master villain.
Among the pirates, there's a good sense of adventure all the way through and the Robert Louis Stevenson story is faithfully rendered except for the sentimental ending. Nevertheless, it never quite overcomes the feeling that you're watching actors going through the motions of a pirate tale and lacks the lusty swordplay and swashbuckling fun of another sea epic, CAPTAIN BLOOD, which came out a year later. Michael Curtiz, it seems, had a better handle on this sort of adventure than Victor Fleming.