Harry Alan Towers article in Scarlet Street

[Harvey Chartrand]

Check out the latest issue of Scarlet Street Magazine — http://www.scarletstreet.com/scarlet/scarlet.htm — for a terrific interview with hack producer Harry Alan Towers, who talks about working with Welles on The Adventures of Harry Lime radio series and on the 1972 film of Treasure Island, with a screenplay by Welles. Towers admits he wouldn't let Welles direct the picture, entrusting the direction to John Hough. I've never seen the Welles Treasure Island, but I hear it's a fiasco. Sounds like it had the hoodoo on it! ln 1965, Jess Franco directed Welles in a few scenes of the never-completed The Island of Treasure, another of Welles' attempts to film the Stevenson tale — and another debacle.

[mteal]

It's not a total fiasco - there are a few good scenes, and overrall it's a rather handsome looking film. It's just that the storytelling is lackluster, and Welles sounds like he's in his own world as Long John Silver. Some of the shots here and there have a somewhat Wellesian look to them, so he may have started out behind the camera (or might have been grooming Franco as director), then backed out for whatever reason, like boredom or dissatisfaction. Welles was pretty particular about what he put his name on as filmmaker, and I think it's possible they may have hired Hough to finish it up and take the blame for the direction.

[jaime marzol]

'a handsome looking film, occasional wellsian angles, bad storyline,' sounds the kind of film i like. if you are a welles fan, a storyline is optional. only KANE and THE STRANGER have sensible narratives.

[LA]

mteal: Yes, I noticed occaisional Wellesian-looking shots too.

There possibly could have been a link with the earlier production that Welles agreed to direct back-to-back with CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, for one of the CHIMES producers, in order to get CHIMES made, which Jesus Franco (as Harvey Chartrand mentioned above) shot some scenes for in 1965. There are a couple of connections: a lot of the people involved in the production of the 1972 TREASURE ISLAND had Franco connections (one of the producers, Artur Brauner, produced Franco's VAMPYROS LESBOS, and of course Harry Alan Towers and Franco were a team for many years), Welles is credited as having co-written the entire script (under the pseudonym O. W. Jeeves), so it's possible that the production was an evolution of the 1965 film Welles never got around to. If it is connected, it's possible Welles directed some of it. Maybe some of those scenic shots are the stuff Franco did in 1965...or maybe not. Of course, some directors do seem to have improved when Welles was around, so it could even have been 100% Hough, but Hough under the influence of Welles.

Whatever it's roots are, TREASURE ISLAND is certainly an interesting film, IMHO. It's historically important, as the script was the penultimate Welles-written (or in this case, co-written) script to reach the screen, it's probably the nearest it's producers ever got to "respectable" filmmaking, as well as being a case of "When Worlds Collide" (Orson Welles co-writing a script for a producer of lesbian vampire movies).
Welles isn't bad as Long John Silver, a little delirious-seeming in some scenes, but not as roaringly hammy as you might expect. Beautiful locations well-photographed: as mteal said, a handsome-looking film. Very outdoorsy, reasonably entertaining.

Another note: There exists (according to The IMDb) an Italian-language version with different footage: oddly, this is listed under the German-language title DIE SCHATZINSEL (international co-production strikes again:)), has anyone seen this?

[mteal]

LA,
The relationship between Welles and Franco is interesting. I think many people dismiss Franco's cut of Don Quixote because they can't stand the idea that the man who made Citizen Kane had a film completed by the man who made Vampyros Lesbos. There was a good article in Filfax magazine a couple of years ago which I wish I had bought. It defends the Franco cut of Quixote and says that Franco was the one who persuaded the James Bond producer (Saltzman, I think) to put up the end money for Welles to finish Chimes At Midnight. When Welles found out that Franco had made the deal on the condition that Saltzman's name go ABOVE the title, Welles angrily agreed, but cut Franco's name out the credits in retaliation.

[LA]

mteal said:-"It defends the Franco cut of Quixote and says that Franco was the one who persuaded the James Bond producer (Saltzman, I think) to put up the end money for Welles to finish Chimes At Midnight. When Welles found out that Franco had made the deal on the condition that Saltzman's name go ABOVE the title, Welles angrily agreed, but cut Franco's name out the credits in retaliation."

Thanks for that information, I'd never heard that before about Saltzman's involvement. Yep, Harry Saltzman was the Bond producer who also co-produced CHIMES.