User Reviews

There's a lot to enjoy about this retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic children's novel "Treasure Island", set here in the American West and featuring Kirk Douglas as the one-legged pirate who gathers together a group of very different people to help him find a treasure. Young Mark Lester and his sister, Lesley-Anne Down, handsome Don Stroud, cantankerous Neville Brand and sultry George Eastman are all having a heck of a time in this family film with a lot going for it, but for some reason one of Kirk Douglas's lesser known movies.

The film is stolen ironically by the only non-human in the film, it was cracking parrot. It's funny, filled with adventure, touching as the relationship between Douglas and young Lester grows into something profound, and in many ways magical. Douglas directed this as well (one of two films), and did quite a good job. There's not a moment in this film that lags although the songs seem out of place and certainly don't sound like something from the era that this is set in. It's filled with slapstick that is violent but funny (a goat butts a man, causing him to fall off a high cliff; Douglas using his wooden leg as a battering ram), and is just a total charmer.

I get the impression that "Director Douglas" told himself and all the other actors, "give me all you got!" for every scene. That, and every time his stunt coordinator said, "hey, we could do a fall from that rock, or tree, or that hillock, or that bridge, or that wall or that flat patch of ground there", they'd shoot it.

That, and the way these pirate gauchos, or whatever they are keep killing each other off for no obvious reason -- I know, the gold, but they didn't just fall from the sky; they must have had fat times to go with the lean times they had right before the movie started. That, and that a major character (Mark Lester's hero-worshiping "Jamie") shows up 20 minutes in. That, and the pointless "twin" story. That, and the movie takes 25 minutes to 'sync up' with the story they're using.

Now, there are a couple of nice scenes, don't get me wrong -- Peg and Jaime when they first meet, and the whole scene that follows, through the funeral. And then Peg starts throwing knives near people and shouting, and things go to weirdness again.

That, and "indians" who seize Peg, "torture" him in a fairly dumb way, and who look a lot like Yugoslavians. That, and wooden legs that are made (and decorated) in the middle of a treasure hunt with evil "indians" and heavily armed "allies" who just turn up and are accepted into the hunt with no wonderings about who will kill who (and try to rape the woman at the first opportunity), and when told to "git", just do. But before and after, we sing!

That, and we'll know the treasure location right away, because... gimme a minute... nope, got nothing. That, and a character actually *saying* as characters keep changing their minds about who gets the gold and who gets killed and where Jamie went, "Hey, it's getting complicated."

That, and who exactly killed who for why at the end? And they did what with the which for huh?

... anyway, an exuberant, but inexpert movie. But don't cry for Mr. Douglas, he may have been a bad director (and a very uneven actor) here, but "Final Countdown", "Draw!", "Tough Guys", a great performance in the lousy "The Fury", and an underrated version of "Inherit the Wind" are in his future. Nobody makes everything great, but as a low point, not such a terrible one.