By MIKE TEAL
The seldom-seen British version of Treasure Island with Robert Rietti’s voice dubbed in place of Orson Welles’ for Long John Silver, has surfaced online.
The 1972 film is one of the most unfortunate and ironic episodes of Welles’ later career. The dubbed version can be found on the Russian social network site ok.ru/video/2302164863740.
Welles had originally been contracted by the Piedra family in Spain in 1964 to direct both Treasure Island and Chimes at Midnight, but the Piedras went bankrupt before Treasure Island could be filmed. But Welles was still contractually obligated to write a script and play Long John Silver, which he eventually did in 1972. However, by that time the producer duties to Treasure Island had passed to Harry Alan Towers, who had worked with Welles on radio in the early 1950s, but thought in 1971 that if Welles was listed as director, completion guarantee insurance would be too difficult to obtain – perhaps due to the aging boy wonder having recently acquired a “fear of completion” reputation. As a result, the young British director John Hough, who had made a vampire film for Hammer Studios the year before, was signed to direct.
Hough stated that Welles was very difficult to work with. Welles had originally intended to direct this movie himself, so he was resentful of Hough and would deliberately ignore his direction and try to do things his own way. Second unit director Andrea Bianchi also found Welles difficult for the same reasons: “I knew all about the ‘black legend’ of Orson Welles. When he is in front of the camera, no matter who is in the director’s chair, it is Welles who directs.” Nevertheless, Hough later claimed in an interview that he was the sole director of this film, with Andrea Bianchi listed as director on the various European-language versions only for tax reasons, as this film was a European co-production.
Hough made some good films in his career, most notably the 1973 horror classic The Legend of Hell House, but in 1971 he was still a 30-year-old relative newcomer, so it’s not hard to imagine him being overpowered by Welles. Certainly the film does look very nice in spots, with some shots here and there that definitely look Wellesian.
However, putting the film’s soundtrack together during post-production proved to be much more problematic. Harry Alan Towers’ autobiography discussed this controversy over the film’s soundtrack and particularly Welles’ voiceovers:
During the shooting, Orson proclaimed that he would have to post sync his role. “I shall give you an authentic, Southern England accent” he declared in his unforgettable voice. With Principal Photography complete, it proved difficult to pin Orson down, but he finally agreed to make himself available in Paris. One of the conditions was that the looping sessions start at midnight, with an ample supply of French red wine available.
Some time later, my long time editor, Nicholas Wentworth, complained that he could not understand one word of what Orson was saying. The film was due to open in the US within a matter of weeks. We therefore had no alternative but to go ahead with Orson’s voice anyway. However, Nat Cohen, the British Distributor and our American television licensee, insisted that Orson do his re-voicing again. When Orson failed to show up, the role was re-voiced by Robert Rietti, a past master of imitation.
Rietti does manage to make Long John Silver’s dialogue more clear, and does a fairly good imitation of Welles, which is not too surprising since he knew Welles, having worked with him in the 1950s as part of the Lives of Harry Lime radio team. But Long John Silver still seems to be in his own world half the time, and although some Welles fans do like the film, and even enjoy Welles’s drunk-sounding mumblings on the American version, most critics consider his performance overall to be too hammy, with one leading Welles scholar going so far as to state that it was probably the worst performance of his career. As things turned out, it was also Welles’ swan song as a leading man.
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