Treasure Island (1950)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Byron Haskin

Writers:

Lawrence Edward Watkin (screenplay)
Robert Louis Stevenson (story)

Release Date:

19 July 1950 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Family

Plot:

Enchanted by the idea of locating treasure buried by Captain Flint, Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey and...

Plot Keywords:

Captain | Long John Silver | Treasure | Pirate | Buried Treasure

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Bobby Driscoll	...	Jim Hawkins
Robert Newton	...	Long John Silver
Basil Sydney	...	Captain Smollett
Walter Fitzgerald	...	Squire Trelawney
Denis O'Dea	...	Dr. Livesy
Finlay Currie	...	Capt. Billy Bones
Ralph Truman	...	George Merry
Geoffrey Keen	...	Israel Hands
Geoffrey Wilkinson	...	Ben Gunn
John Laurie	...	Blind Pew
Francis De Wolff	...	Black Dog
David Davies	...	Mr. Arrow
John Gregson	...	Redruth
Andrew Blackett	...	Gray
William Devlin	...	Morgan
Howard Douglas	...	Williams
Harry Locke	...	Haggott
Sam Kydd	...	Cady
Stephen Jack	...	Job
Harold Jamieson	...	Scully
Diarmuid Kelly	...	Bolen
Reginald Drummond	...	Vane
Gordon Mulholland	...	Durgin
Patrick Troughton	...	Roach
Jim O'Brady	...	Wolfe
Chris Adcock	...	Pike
Tom Lucas	...	Upson
Leo Phillips	...	Spotts
Eddie Moran	...	Bart
Bob Head	...	Tardy
Ken Buckle	...	Joyce
Paddy Brannigan	...	Hunter
Jack Arrow	...	Norton
Freddy Clark	...	Bray

Directed by
Byron Haskin

Writing credits
Lawrence Edward Watkin		(screenplay)
Robert Louis Stevenson		(story)

Produced by
Perce Pearce	....	producer
Walt Disney	....	executive producer (uncredited)
Herbert Smith	....	executive producer in charge of production (uncredited)

Original Music by
Clifton Parker

Cinematography by
Freddie Young		(photographed by) (as F.A. Young)

Film Editing by
Alan Jaggs		(as Alan L. Jaggs)

Casting by
Maude Spector		(uncredited)

Production Design by
Thomas N. Morahan		(as Thomas Morahan)

Costume Design by
Sheila Graham		(uncredited)

Makeup Department
Tony Sforzini	....	makeup supervisor
Vivienne Walker	....	hair styles supervisor

Production Management
Douglas Peirce	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Mark Evans	....	assistant director
Pat MacDonnell	....	second assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Kenneth Heeley-Ray	....	sound editor
Peter Davies	....	first assistant dubbing mixer (uncredited)
Jack Locke	....	sound (uncredited)

Visual Effects by
Peter Ellenshaw	....	matte artist

Camera and Electrical Department
L. Cave-Chinn	....	location camera operator (as L. Cave Chinn)
Skeets Kelly	....	camera operator
Stanley W. Sayer	....	location camera operator (as Stanley Sayer)
Maurice Gillett	....	supervising electrician (uncredited)
Arthur Ibbetson	....	camera operator: third unit (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Joan Bridge	....	color consultant: Technicolor

Music Department
Muir Mathieson	....	conductor: The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Other crew
Alex Bryce	....	location director
Joan Davis	....	continuity
Walt Disney	....	presenter
Russell Lloyd	....	location director
Catherine O'Brien	....	unit publicist (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Walt Disney Productions

Distributors

• RKO Radio Pictures (1950) (UK) (theatrical)
• RKO Radio Pictures (1950) (USA) (theatrical)
• Buena Vista Pictures (1975) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• RKO (1951) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Abril Vídeo (Brazil) (VHS)
• American Broadcasting Company (ABC) (1955) (USA) (TV)
• Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE) (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• Buena Vista Home Entertainment (2003) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Buena Vista Home Video (1995) (Netherlands) (VHS)
• Guild Home Video (1986) (UK) (VHS)
• Metrodome Distribution (2002) (UK) (video)
• Prism Leisure Corporation (2003) (UK) (DVD)
• Walt Disney Home Video (video)
• Warner Home Video (1999) (Netherlands) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The  music played by

Also Known As:

Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (UK) (complete title) (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Australia:G | Canada:G (Manitoba/Quebec) | Iceland:12 | South Korea:All | Canada:PG (video rating) | Finland:K-12 | Iceland:10 | Sweden:15 | UK:U | USA:G (edited version: 1975) | USA:PG (re-rating) (1992)

Filming Locations:

Black Park, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

Walt Disney Productions

Trivia:

One of the first Disney movies to be shown on television, this was first telecast in January 1955, as part of the "Disneyland" (1954) television program. It was the first Disney live-action film to be shown complete on television, in two one-hour installments shown a week apart, rather than having the entire film on a single evening. It was broadcast again in the 1960s, in the same format, after the series had changed its name to "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" and the show had moved to NBC.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When Jim Hawkins is climbing the rigging to get away from the pirate, the sky is blue with white fluffy clouds but it's supposed to be night.

Quotes:

Opening title card: If sailor tales and sailor tunes, storm and adventure, heat and cold. If schooners, islands and maroons and buccaneers and buried gold, and all the old romance retold exactly in the ancient way can please as me they pleased of old the wiser youngsters of today... So be it!

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Making of 'Atlantis: The Lost Empire' (2002) (V)

Soundtrack:

Sea Shanty

Two Heads, One Leg

Its rather hard to appreciate in the sea of movies we have now. But once upon a time the world of imagination was owned by books, and this was a king among them. Stevenson invented the modern notion of pirates: the business about eyepatches, rum, wooden legs, and parrots of course. But more than that, the concept of honor and ritual among these thieves. Its the notion that pirates had a code, with rules that was so compelling.

That allowed him to weave a story that stuck. It wasn't so much the romance of the thing, others would try that. It was the way he could cast two societies against each other, using the society of pirates to illuminate the society of gentlemen. Trewlaney, after all, was just as venal as Long John. All the business about shifting control of the ship, the island, the map, the compound and the treasure — the business about shifting allegiance, and loyalties, all this is the stuff that makes this work.

Regular readers know that I'm concerned about construction. I strongly believe that the best, most effective, longest lasting narratives have structure that matters. Oh, it helps to have color, adventure, but if it doesn't have structure, we have nothing to hold on to, no way to map our way into it. Consider what an effect this story has had on imagination.

Disney chose it for his first fully live action feature knowing its importance. The genius Disney had was intuiting the importance of structure and having a similar intuition about how it needed to be recast for different media and artistic goals. Its not just times, its not just book-to-movie that he wanted to change, but change the world from one where evil truly exists, to one where evil is a transient illusion only.

Remember that Disney evolved his sensibilities when the conventions of noir were maturing, and he found a spot as the inventor of a counter-noir. In real noir, the world is driven by some amoral goddess who doesn't care whether we are happy, only that she (and we as viewers) are amused. In Disney antinoir, we may go through bad parts of town, but some effervescent pixie dust is always there to ensure that good prevails. The world is good. Its a belief in a kind of God that is rather modern.

There's much to explore in Disney, but I'm more attracted to Stevenson here. His book (his first!) came after "Moby Dick," so the malevolence of a one-legged English-speaking seaman was already cemented, as was the general notion of symbology of the body. So it was hardly original to (intuitively) engineer the shape of the characters as well as the situations, as mentioned. The parrot effectively gave Silver two heads, and there's only one leg. This would have mattered in literary conventions of the time.

If you read the book, you'll note how the bodily features figure, each almost as agents independent of the bodies they lived on.

Does this movie leverage that? No. Its Disney's method to take the entire structure apart, taking the most recognizable bits to recreate something new. It drove me nuts with "Alice in Wonderland," because that structure is profoundly significant. Everything here is focused on that rascal Long John, who in the book had a black trophy wife he was bringing the loot home to. Long? Heh.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.