Treasure Island (1934)

Directed by Victor Fleming. Starring Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Otto Kruger, Lewis Stone, Lionel Barrymore, Nigel Bruce, Charles Sale, Dorothy Peterson, William V. Mong.

First sound film version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventure novel is made with ample atmosphere and energy, evoking a pleasing sense of period flavor and old-fashioned swashbuckling. Story has been effectively streamlined and romanticized, with characterizations of bright, noble heroes and dastardly, cunning villains, and although some production elements are dated and smoothed-over, it’s a mostly credible, palpable “boy’s fantasy”. Barrymore makes for a bleary Billy Bones and Sale’s vaudevillian background helps turn Ben Gunn into a model for future marooned madmen in the movies, but the casting in the two key roles are a costly mistake—Beery’s hamminess and lack of dark charisma makes him one of the weaker Long John Silver’s on record, and Cooper is too soft, young, stiff and wimpy for Jim Hawkins, as uncomfortable in 18th-century cabin boy garb as a costume party attendee in sailor breeches two sizes too small. John Lee Mahin co-scripted.

68/100