LONG JOHN SILVER
(Treasure Island Pictures) ROBERT NEWTON was the most picturesque, the most ingratiatingly villainous Long John Silver ever to twirl a crutch or lean on an apple-barrel, It would have been criminal neglect (and a sin against the Box Office) to have allowed him to slip into obscurity over the taffrail.of the Hispaniola when Disney had finished with him. Regard the old reprobate, therefore, swilling rum and coco-cola (this film ig strictly for juveniles) with a bunch of retired cronies likewise blueing their super. in the pubs of Porto Bello. The party is threatening to get out of hand when news comes that the Governor’s daughter has been kidnapped by pirates (‘‘Arrrh, that be El Toro, that be!) and that a youngster, Jim ’Awkins, has been snatched likewise ("Arrrh, that be young Jim ’Awkins wot I was shipmates with on the old Hispaniola, that be!"), And wot do you know? Before you can cry "Pieces of Eight" we are all at sea again, Long John, Young Jim, the Governor’s daughter, and El Toro (Lioyd Berrell, in a costume that could have been designed by Emett or Ronald Searle). We are so
much at sea that I am still not quite sure how we eventually got on to Treasure Island, but get there we did, to the accompaniment of the requisite amount of double-crossing. Young Jim has a particularly terrible time on the island, being chivvied by Israel Hands, who also has survived the earlier adventure as a substitute Ben Gunn. But he is blind and has been turned, with crepe hair and a pair of opaque white contact lenses, into a figure too terrifying for anyone but the most hardened nine-year-olds, I perspired with relief when Jim, finally cornered on a cliff-top, dived between Hands’ knees and, boomps-a-daisy, down went the villain into the deep blue sea. I’m not quite sure either that the introduction of Purity Pinker, a buxom beldame with designs on Long John, will meet with general approval (juvenile or otherwise), but at least-by causing him to flee with Jim from matrimony and respectability-she saves him for such
other wild adventures as Treasure Island Pictures Inc. doubtless have in store for us,
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 822, 29 April 1955, Page 17
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367LONG JOHN SILVER New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 822, 29 April 1955, Page 17
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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