Monday 24 July 2023

Treasure Island (1972 John Hough, Andrea Bianchi, Antonio Margheriti)

Welles had written the script and tried to get the film made as far back as 1965. Here the adaptation is credited to him as 'O.W. Jeeves' (perhaps as a reference to W.C. Fields writing as 'Mahatma Kane Jeeves', which he did partly in reference to Welles) and Wolf Mankovitz, screenplay by Hubert Frank, Antonio Margheriti and Bautista de la Calle (it was an English-Italian-French coproduction).

Apparently some copies don't have Welles' own voice - I did wonder at this one, shown by TPTV.

It's not a bad version, with Kim Burfield as Jim Hawkins, quite full-bodied, but with unconvincing acting and dated direction. With Lionel Stander, Walter Slezak (Lifeboat), Angel del Pozo.

That's apparently Welles' own parrot and monkey.

We saw another film that was cropped to 4x3 in two days - not good enough!

Both the 1934 and 1950 versions are better, apparently. Though I've a feeling neither probably catches the horror and excitement of Stevenson's novel.


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