Treasure Island *** (1972, Orson Welles, Kim Burfield, Lionel Stander, Walter Slezak, Rik Battaglia) – Classic Movie Review 2061

Orson Welles makes the expected 10-course banquet out of playing the pirate captain Long John Silver, revelling in revealing the murderous rogue’s dark side, in director John Hough’s generally entertaining adventure film. This adaptation was released in several different language versions, each with a different director. It was filmed entirely on location in Spain, with a Spanish crew.

This rumbustious, undervalued 1972 Spanish-shot version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 classic young adults’ novel about a boy’s life with pirates on the high seas proves a pleasant, enjoyable surprise. It’s good that, this time, much of the plot and the linking narrative, spoken by the actor playing Jim Hawkins, is faithful to the original book. 

Welles wrote the screenplay for Treasure Island and started filming it back in 1964 for Spanish producer Emiliano Piedra, making it back to back with his long-cherished Shakespearean film Chimes at Midnight, but it was abandoned after a few days of filming.

Yet Welles remained under contract to Treasure Island both as actor and writer, and eight years later he was brought in to make the film under director Hough. Welles was so dismissive of the many rewrites to his original script by writers Wolf Mankowitz, Hubert Frank, Antonio Margheriti, Gérard Vergez and Bautista de la Calle that he asked not to be credited, taking the pseudonym O W Jeeves.

Not surprisingly, Welles had a low opinion of how it turned out 1972. The poor sound quality of his performance is supposedly explained by it being dubbed in one night in a Rome studio while he was swigging from a bottle of white wine. However, in a 1979 interview Welles claimed his voice was redubbed by another actor.

Walter Slezak, Lionel Stander, Rik Battaglia and Ángel del Pozo are also flamboyant assets to liven up the movie as Squire Trelawney, Billy Bones, Captain Smollett and Doctor Livesey. And young Kim Burfield is more than adequate as cabin lad Jim Hawkins.

Welles received an Honorary Award Oscar in 1971 for his ‘superlative artistry and versatility in the creation of motion pictures’. Alas, Welles was not present at the awards ceremony and his acceptance speech was pre-recorded. Probably he was in Spain filming Treasure Island. Welles did win an actual Oscar – for Best Original Screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941), shared with Herman J. Mankiewicz.

On 19 July 2003, Welles’s Oscar statuette went on sale at an auction at Christie’s, New York, but was voluntarily withdrawn so the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences could buy it back for just one dollar. The statuette, included in a large selection of Welles-related material, was going to be sold by Beatrice Welles, the youngest of the film-maker’s three daughters and the sole heir to his estate and was expected to sell for more than $300,000.

Remake: Treasure Island (1990) with Charlton Heston, Christian Bale and Oliver Reed. Previous versions: director Victor Fleming’s 1934 classic with Wallace Beery as Long John Silver and Jackie Cooper as Jim, and Treasure Island (1950) with Robert Newton as Long John.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2061

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