Treasure island (1950)

Walt Disney’s first fully live-action film came about more from necessity than from a business plan. Both Disney and distributor RKO had a sizeable amount of British pounds tied up in the UK after World War II.

Government restrictions prevented Disney from taking the money out of the country, so he decided to use it to make a movie.

Shooting in glorious Technicolor entirely in England (at Denham Studios in Buckinghamshire and on location in Cornwall, Devon and Bristol) and adding only one American – young Disney contract player Bobby Driscoll (Song of the South, So Dear to My Heart) – to the otherwise all-British cast, Disney set about adapting Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventure classic Treasure Island to the screen.

The early goings-on follow Stevenson’s book fairly faithfully. At a coastal Inn, pirate Black Dog (Francis De Wolff) comes to deliver a message to Captain Billy Bones (Finlay Currie).

As the old captain dies, he passes a treasure map on to the innkeeper’s young son, Jim Hawkins (Bobby Driscoll), who hooks up with local bigwigs Doctor Livesy (Denis O’Dea) and Squire Trelawney (Walter Fitzgerald) for a treasure hunt.

Boarding Captain Smollett’s (Basil Sydney) ship, the Hispaniola, Jim meets one-legged cook Long John Silver (Robert Newton), who takes an instant liking to the boy.

But Silver has an ulterior motive. He and most of the crew have planned a mutiny, hoping to find the treasure themselves. When the dust settles from the mutiny, Silver and his band follow the map to the treasure, with Jim in tow.

A series of scrapes and double-crosses follows, culminating in a tough moral dilemma for young Jim.

British actor Robert Newton made such a splash as Long John Silver that he became forever identified with the role, playing one pirate or another for much of the rest of his career, including the excellent Australian children’s TV series, The Adventures of Long John Silver (1955).

The ending of the film was changed from Stevenson’s original to highlight the relationship between Jim and Long John, but the adventurous spirit remained the same.

So did the action, so much so that the film’s violence earned it a PG rating from the MPAA in its 1975 US re-release.

Not wanting a PG rating to blemish its otherwise G-rated family record, Disney edited out a few offending scenes (eg: a trapped Jim shoots a pirate pursuer in the face after receiving a dagger in the shoulder, leaving a wound from which he almost bleeds to death) to secure the desired rating.

In 1992, with the PG stigma no longer an issue (thanks to taboo breakers like The Watcher in the Woods and The Black Hole), Disney released a video version of Treasure Island in its original, uncut form.

TRIVIA
Bobby Driscoll didn’t have a permit to work in England. As he was under 14 (the minimum age required by British labour laws), he was refused one in court. Driscoll’s defender argued that he was working for an American company, not a British one – but to no avail.

The studio appealed and, during the four weeks before the court upheld their original decision, the director, Byron Haskin, hurriedly shot all Driscoll’s major scenes and close-ups.

On 29 October 1949, Driscoll, his father and the studio were each fined £100 (over £3,000 in today’s money), and the boy was ordered to leave the country.

A British stand-in (reportedly named John Preston) completed the remaining long and back-of-head shots, and wide-angle, action-heavy location scenes. It’s difficult to distinguish between the two boys in the final cut.

Jim Hawkins
Bobby Driscoll
Long John Silver
Robert Newton
Captain Smollett
Basil Sydney
Squire Trelawney
Walter Fitzgerald
Dr Livesey
Denis O’Dea
Capt. Billy Bones
Finlay Currie
George Merry
Ralph Truman
Israel Hands
Geoffrey Keen
Ben Gunn
Geoffrey Wilkinson
Blind Pew
John Laurie
Black Dog
Francis De Wolff
Mr Arrow
David Davies
Redruth
John Gregson
Gray
Andrew Blackett
Morgan
William Devlin

Director
Byron Haskin