Treasure Island - Megaphone-holding department

[chrissie]

I'm shocked. I have the UK DVD and didn't realise there was a version with a different soundtrack. I haven't watched it properly -- I don't think it's a very good film, to be honest. I thought the voice sounded a bit odd, but not like a bad impression of OW so much as OW himself doing a weird, uncharacteristic voice. It doesn't sound like him but it kind of *does* around the edges.

Don't agree with the decline in Welles's vocals being relevant. He was a little more hoarse but still a great voice. His voice *really* suffered around '81-82 when his health took a nosedive. He sounds a lot more dry and breathy after that, though oddly this is much more evident as Himself rather than in performance mode. The great delivery and diction endured. But I mean, the point is, at least up to then I don't think you can seriously find fault, and after that, well, he was ill...

I have to see this other version of Treasure Island now, though.

[catbuglah]

Stevenson - interesting author - not necessarily Treasure Island - would have prefered Welles doing Master of Ballantrae or Jekyll ??? and Hyde :angry:

I don't know what Welles was thinking by delivering such a vocal performance

There's that jammin' article on acting that's interesting in that regard -
http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue9/wellesperformance.html

Listen to the 1938 radio version of Treasure Island - he knew how to do a pirate accent and still enunciate clearly.

OK - (One hour later...) Well, it's a nice proper performance - but I still prefer the Welles' quirkier film performance - I guess there's no accounting for taste :p

Very similar script - Almost the entire radio show except the epilogue cannibalized :angry: with the Spy Glass Inn scene added and the Jim, Long John, Pirate showdown scene extended.

Back to movie, the next twenty odd minutes (from the pirate murder scene to the end of the Jim, Silver, Pirate standoff) just goes swimmingly -
Here's what Sir Bygber had to say :

About half way thru Treasure Island when he knifes a guy there's a brilliant scene he plays in reasonably close quarters.

and

but another thing which struck me as fairly good in Treasure Island was the first swordplay scene. It reminded me of the skillful way Welles draws you into the battle in Falstaff, making it look like more is happening than actually is.

Moreover, you have nice rich use of the natural color blue (sky, ocean, double lighting with blue light in standoff scene) - again you gotta love the way objects and characters often abruptly pop into the forground - very fun and suspensful - Didn't Welles once mention that he wanted to develop the use of close-ups in his later work (re: Chimes?) Consistent with his later style, this film is a veritale potpourri of interesting ways to use close-ups

[catbuglah]

For the last part of the movie, from the beginning of the treasure hunt to the end, Welles just sets em' up and knocks em' down, just takin' care of business, lots of nice subtle things. Two more cool Wellesian touches: fade-outs - I guess real fade-outs were out of style, so the maestro does this out-of-focus thing and then focuses in to the new scene but has the framing similar to the previous scene so it's a smooth transition - - The credits roll down against a backdrop of a striking silouette of Long John Silver...

Ben Gunn :p is pretty good in this - there's this wacky cross-eyed pirate who's pretty fun, too. Acting-wise, Welles does this recurring finger to eyebrow ??? salute thing (which predates the Sting!) Jane Eyre, Black Magic, and Treasure Island make an interesting trilogy of films adapted from 19th century literature classics and which I feel the Maestro deserves at least a co-director credit. (I probably prefer all three over The Stranger, certainly over the middle third of the latter.)

[Store Hadji]

Arrr, Catbuglah me lad. Arrrr. Arrrrrrr. (insert seven minutes of incoherent sound here - like a lion yawning through maple syrup.)

Pieces of Eight! Pieces of Eight!

Say, how many times you watched this film now?

I watched Gilliam's Brazil forty times straight when it came out on VHS (original US theatrical cut - pan and scan - which I actually prefer to his recent director's cut.) Have you caught up with me there, yet?

Arrrrrrrr. I'll keelhaul ye if you don't mummmmble the yawwwn roarrrrrrrrrrrr.

[catbuglah]

Welles knew exactly what he was doing and sounded like that deliberately. I just haven't sussed out why.

Quite possible he was basing his characterization on... Keith Richards :angry: So there you go - Johnny Depp does the same thing that Orson had already done thirty years earlier, and yet it's mister pretty boy method actor that gets an oscar nomination - like, what's the deal with THAT, man?

I like to analyze films and am sort of trolling around for a Welles film to study to see how he does it - but with Welles, his stuff is so intense, dense, personal, virtuoso, complex that these secondary Wellesian offerings are a good intro - less daunting, a more casual look at his techniques because his directorial approach on these are more casual, detached, off the cuff, which is fun :laugh:

[Harvey Chartrand]

If John Hough ever visits this message board, he will be pleased by all these compliments, because, unless scenes from Welles' unfinished LA ISLA DEL TESORO (1965) were inserted in the 1972 TREASURE ISLAND, Mr. Hough is the sole director of this picture, according to producer Harry Alan Towers.

[catbuglah]

Harry Alan Towers said in a recent interview in SCARLET STREET MAGAZINE that he would never allow Welles to direct TREASURE ISLAND, as the aging boy wonder was way too unpredictable.

Towers' is certainly an important account, especially considering that he and Welles had worked together previously, I believe in the early fifties BBC radio Harry Lime and Black Museum shows.

Here's a reference I found for Scarlet Street :

http://www.scarletstreet.com/store/html/issue45.htm

[chrissie]

Further to my rambling comments on OW's vocals, it seems pertinent that I received the Merv Griffin interview (at last!) yesterday. Great interview, too. But the most surprising point for me was how much better Orson SOUNDS than in a lot of later footage (esp. Someone to Love, where he was very hoarse). Quite moving and strange to see, but actually a positive note too. I'm thrilled to have seen it finally.

[catbuglah]

[/quote]Someone to Love, where he was very hoarse :O [quote]

I remember renting that - nice monologue on OW's part, nice final film appearance - nice shirt :;):

Treasure Island factoid - Wolf Makowitz, who shares writing credits with OW, was another English associate of Welles.

[chrissie]

It is a nice appearance, and mostly just him being himself. I don't like the film itself much. I'm not a fan of that kind of precious, naval-gazing, pseudo-naturalistic (yet strangely not natural at all on any level) kind of film -- it seems the antithesis of Welles to me, so it's surprising he had so much time for HJ's efforts.

But I think the Merv show is a nicer note to go out on in a final sense. If only because he seems in better shape (even if sadly he wasn't).

[catbuglah]

The reviews are in (IMBd) - 6.5/10 but... the second largest group of voters gave have it at 10 (a bit much, but there it is...)

144 'IMDb users' have given a weighted average vote of 6.5 / 10

Demographic breakdowns are shown below.

Votes Percentage Rating
28 19.4% 10
8 5.6% 9
17 11.8% 8
27 18.8% 7
29 20.1% 6
14 9.7% 5
12 8.3% 4
4 2.8% 3
2 1.4% 2
3 2.1% 1

Arithmetic mean = 6.9. Median = 7

[jaime marzol]

catbug, i saw you posted you like to analyse films. get a book called FILM ART by david bordwell. my god it's the pinnacle of film analysis books. bordwell is my film analysis guru. of all the analysis, and articles i have on kane, maybe 80 of them, the kane analysis in FILM ART renders the others useless. bordwell is the man.

all through his book he uses welles, ford, hitch and kurosawa films as examples to teach the reader analysis.

he also wrote another bitching book called MAKING MEANING.

i've recommended these books here so many times that i need to state that i don't know bordwell, and i don't get a kick-back from his books.

and yes, most of jaglom's films are his pals hanging around shooting the breeze, very boring. except CAN SHE BAKE A CHERRY PIE, which went past boring and went to odious.

[catbuglah]

FILM ART by david bordwell. pinnacle of film analysis books. welles, ford, hitch and kurosawa films as examples to teach the reader analysis.

Hey thanks, Jaime - duly noted - It'll give some variety to my film theory library which consists of Eisenstein, Eisenstein, and some more Eisenstein ???

[jaime marzol]

i have FILM FORM by eisenstein, have only skimmed it so far, but what i have skimmed is excellent. i can see eisenstein's theories in the restored opening shot of TOUCH OF EVIL, the audio we hear as the camera passes by the stores. it's also in a rewrite of LADY FROM SHANGHAI, as ohara passes by stores. welles never threw away ideas, he would save them for other films.

both ivans from criteriun are excellent offering with lots of supplement. too bad oktober didn't get the same treatment. in alexander nevsky, it's bordwell doing the commentary track, and it's darn good.

[catbuglah]

[/quote]i have FILM FORM by eisenstein[quote]

Yeah, that would be the essential one, I believe - (actually, I forgot that I've read Bordwell's, Cinema of Eisenstein, great book, well researched in terms of Russian esthetic movements