Silver-plated island
The task of creating the legitimate sequel to Disney's 1950 Treasure Island fell to an Australian company, but with the original's director, Byron Haskin, and the inimitable Robert Newton in the title role of Long John Silver.
Perhaps "inimitable" is the wrong word, since Newton's mannerisms have been adopted for portrayals of pirates ever since—as recently as for Geoffrey Rush's Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean series—though never as cunningly as in Newton's work.
This film, confusingly called Return to Treasure Island or Long John Silver's Return to Treasure Island, is however an obviously more cheaply produced followup. (Though not as cheap as the Tab Hunter effort of the same year.)
It also suffers from not being based on a Robert Louis Stevenson story. Silver hears rival pirate Mendoza has kidnapped his young friend Jim Hawkins and the daughter of a Caribbean governor. He schemes to rescue them and in the process find a second cache treasure said to be hidden on treasure Island. Again the plot involves mutiny, marooning on the island, a defence of the stockade, hostage taking, betrayals, gunfire and swordplay. Villains include Medoza and Silver's former mate Israel Hand (Rod Taylor), who has survived Jim shooting him earlier but was blinded.
In all this, Jim, played by newcomer Kit Taylor, is relegated to a supporting role to Long John, a reversal of the earlier film. Worse, we actually come to trust Silver in their relationship. The enigma is reduced to a puzzle. At the end the rascal's become respectable in the eyes of the local government, though he gives hints of returning to his buccaneering days.
A subplot has Silver sweet on a matron Purity Pinker (Connie Gilchrist) but trying to escape matrimony with her. I guess Silver's "Negress" lover, referred to in Stevenson's novel, would have been too much for the times.
Long John Silver is obviously a letdown from Treasure Island, but its still offers that great, bigger-than-life character in a moderately enjoyable narrative.
At
home with Long John Silver
Between his two feature outings as Long John Silver, Newton had hammed it up similarly as Edward Teach, the titular character of Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952). The man was born to play memorable pirates. Unfortunately he got only one more chance to chew up the ersatz British and Caribbean scenery—in twenty-six episodes of a television series.
Newton, Kit Taylor and Connie Gilchrist reprised their recent movie roles in The Adventures of Long John Silver, which was shot in Australia in 1955, I believe— before Australia even had television. It was shown in England and America in 1956 or 1957 and around the rest of the world over the next decade. They would have made more if Newton hadn't died at the height of his fame in 1956.
When I was very young, The Adventures of Long John Silver seemed like one of the most exciting things on TV, along with Zorro, Ivanhoe and Robin Hood. More intriguing than the others though, because Silver wasn't quite the hero the other leads were. Kind of a bad guy, wasn't he? Except that he chummed with good lad Jim?
Looking back at it in context now, we can see the single-season of the show continues the taming of Silver, as he develops a relationship with Purity, gives up rum in favour of (gasp!) milk, and lives with the Hawkins family in an inn. He's still a lovable rascal but no longer a cutthroat scoundrel. Yet Newton plays him with all the old panache.
The writing and direction are better than for most TV shows of the period, though anachronisms abound: a Christmas episode actually references Santa Claus, who wasn't to be invented for a century or so.
Episodes are difficult to find. Only half have been released on DVD as of this writing. The technical quality is also not great by most accounts, since the masters are not available for making true copies.
But the adventure continues, with Newton's Long John Silver at the centre, which is what any Treasure Island fan really wants.
— Eric
