Treasure Island (1990 film)
| Treasure Island | |
|---|---|
 US Poster | |
| Directed by | Fraser Clarke Heston |
| Written by | Fraser Clarke Heston (screenplay) Robert Louis Stevenson (novel) |
| Produced by | Fraser Clarke Heston |
| Starring | Charlton Heston Christian Bale Oliver Reed Christopher Lee Julian Glover Pete Postlethwaite Clive Wood |
| Music by | Paddy Moloney, The Chieftains |
Release date | January 22, 1990 (US) |
| Country | UK / US |
| Language | English |
Treasure Island is a 1990 TV film adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous 1883 novel Treasure Island, written & directed by Fraser Clarke Heston (Charlton Heston's son), and also starring several notable British actors, including Christian Bale, Oliver Reed, Christopher Lee (both of whom had starred alongside Heston in the 1973 Three Musketeers film), Julian Glover and Pete Postlethwaite.
The film was an original production filmed and aired by the TNT network, and was also released theatrically outside the US. The title has appeared on some covers as "Devils Treasure", rather than "Treasure Island". This version of the story is noted for its faithfulness to the book, with much of the dialogue coming directly from it, as well as recreating several of the more violent scenes from the book.
Plot
Jim Hawkins (Christian Bale) discovers a treasure map and embarks on a journey to find the treasure, but pirates led by Long John Silver (Charlton Heston) have plans to take the treasure for themselves by way of mutiny.
Cast
- Charlton Heston as Long John Silver
- Christian Bale as Jim Hawkins
- Oliver Reed as Billy Bones
- Christopher Lee as Blind Pew
- Richard Johnson as Squire Trelawney
- Julian Glover as Dr Livesey
- Isla Blair as Mrs Hawkins
- Clive Wood as Captain Smollet
- Nicholas Amer as Ben Gunn
- John Abbott as Joyce
- James Cosmo as Redruth
- James Coyle as Morgan
- Michael Halsey as Israel Hands
- Michael Thoma as Hunter
- Pete Postlethwaite as George Merry
- Robert Putt as Job Anderson
- John Benfield as Black Dog
- Richard Beale as Mr Arrow
- Brett Fancy as Young Tom
- Steven Mackintosh as Dick
- Bill Sloan as Scarface
Production
It was filmed in 1989 on location in Cornwall, England, in Jamaica, and also at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England.[1] The replica ship Bounty II was used as the fictional Hispaniola on film. It was originally constructed for the film "Mutiny on The Bounty", and was set to be destroyed at the end of the film but Marlon Brando protested and the ship was kept intact. It sank off the coast of the Carolinas during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012.
According to Allmovie, Charlton Heston "plays the character of Long John Silver as written: a cold, crafty, cunning rogue, by turns charming and deadly, but never to be underestimated" and, unlike other filmed versions of the story, the movie "adheres with utter fidelity to the Stevenson novel". However, Tom Shales of The Washington Post wrote of the film: "The mast ain't all that's mizzen in a dreary and confused new production of Treasure Island...miscasting and embarrassingly poor performance of Charlton Heston as Long John Silver, a laborious mistake from arrival (in the second half hour) to departure. That Heston is one of the most humorless hulks who ever stood before a camera helps not a bit..." (Tom Shales, The Washington Post, January 22, 1990, STYLE; PAGE B8)
Home release
The film was released on VHS and Laserdisc, which were both out of print for many years. Eventually, a DVD was released on September 27, 2011.[2]
Notes
- ^ Filming locations for Treasure Island (IMDB)
- ^ Heston, Fraser Clarke (director) (September 27, 2011). Treasure Island (DVD). Turner Home Entertainment. ASIN B0057FGCR8.
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