In my opinion, the only good thing about this 1934 film was the wonderful relationship that developed between Jackie Cooper and Wallace Beery. The year before they had that same type of relationship when Beery won the Oscar for "The Champ." (He tied Frederic March for "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.")As always, Lionel Barrymore was terrific, but his part was relatively so brief. Despite showing the relationship, I wish that the film had concentrated on the treasure itself. Instead, we see people turning against one another for it.Beery, with his raspy-nasal like intonation, gave a gem of a performance as the pirate with a heart.

Every generation sees a new adaption of Robert Louis Stevenson's eternal classic Treasure Island. It's a timeless adventure story that will always appeal to the young and young at heart. And it has one of the great acting roles of all time, one you can really eat a whole living room set with and still be in bounds.For a scene stealing actor like Wallace Beery playing Long John Silver is no stretch at all. He dominates this version over the entire cast and as he's in most of the scenes after Lionel Barrymore as Captain Billy Bones dies and leaves his map to that intrepid band of treasure hunters. Barrymore gets his innings in as well as the bloodthirsty pirate captain who double-crossed his crew and had the presence of mind to die in Dorothy Peterson and Jackie Cooper's inn.It's a real toss up between who is loudest, biggest eyerolling, larger than life Silver, be it Wallace Beery or Robert Newton in the later version done by Walt Disney. Both these men were remarkably similar in acting styles. But Beery was a cheap soul who had few friends in Hollywood and Newton was the life of that alcoholic party that was his life. I wouldn't want to choose which was better.Beery and Cooper had their act down pat from The Champ. It's always a source of amazement to me how Cooper couldn't stand Beery and Beery among his dislikes was children in general. Yet you'd never know it seeing them together as Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver.Otto Kruger as Dr. Livesey, Nigel Bruce as Squire Trelawney, and Lewis Stone as Captain Smollett are perfectly cast in their roles. But they really have trouble keeping up with Beery. MGM gave the film the usual high gloss production values and Treasure Island is one of those films that always seems to be so right for screen that few variations are ever made on the book. A great tribute to the visual quality of Stevenson's writing.And you can enjoy this and the Disney version for generations to come.

Robert Louis Stevenson has written a fine tale of adventure, life on the high seas, pirates, treasure chests, betrayal and intrigue, and all that. This was the first book I can remember being given as a child. I was too young to understand the vocabulary or even the general thrust of the narrative. Of course I knew Jim Hawkins (Jackie Coogan) hid in the apple barrel because the illustration showed that. But what was really needed was a glossary for kids and landlubbers. Some glosses in the margins, indicating that "the black spot" was what was left over after a Mexican meal. And informing the reader that "helm" was the opposite of "heavenm." And that "pole star" was an allusion to Paweł Wojciechowski, the Pole vaulter. Fortunately, the movie is couched in easily understood images and accompanied by dialog the meaning of which can be interpolated into the context.Young Jim Hawkins and his mother come across a treasure map. Doctor Livesey (Otto Kruger), Squire Trelawney (Nigel Bruce), and Captain Smollet (Lewis Stone) hire a crew to sail the Hispaniola to Treasure Island and dig up the chests. Alas, half the crew are subordinates of the crafty, evil Long John Silver (Wallace Beery). There is a mutiny when the ship reaches the island. Jim is captured by one side and rescued by the other, and in-between he cuts the ships anchor lines and beaches her to save her from the pirates. A couple of fierce fire fights and one or two cutlass engagements ends with the good guys sailing away with the treasure and with Silver as a captive. Silver, cunning as ever, talks Jim into letting him go in Jamaica, rather than hang. We feel, though, that despite Silver's unsavory past, he genuinely likes Jim and Jim is optimist enough to believe what Silver says about reforming. Considerable sentiment in the scene, but not an excess.No great acting skills are called for, and none are on display. Coogan isn't really believable. So few kids his age are. The most outrageous performance is given by Wallace Beery, with his big flabby mouth and his calculating eyes darting in all directions. Beery has been dismissed by critics as a big ham but I rather enjoy his overplaying, and he was in a couple of neat pictures, such as "China Seas." The story has been remade several times but this version strikes me as the best. Much of the humor depends on Beery's demeanor and Jim's naivte. Here's an exchange. Beery is the cook and is assembling dinner. Jim: "Doctor Livesy is no sailor but he can cut you up and sew you back together again." Beery: "That 'sewing up' part must be difficult." (The "cutting up" part doesn't faze him.) Jim: "But so's the cutting up." Beery: (Pauses a moment, looks thoughtful.) "Experience, Jim."Stevenson's book still has the power to enchant a reader, even -- or maybe especially -- an adult. Jim Hawkins, the author of the narrative, is as naive as Candide or Matty Ross in "True Grit" and he misses some things an older person would pick up. Stevenson died young -- a tall, thin, ascetic-looking leptosome. He's buried now at Vailima, in Western Samoa, where he was known as "tusitala," which some have made sound like an honorific, whereas it just means "writer" or "someone who tells stories." (Good enough, I guess.) He borrowed some details of geography (eg., Spyglass Hill) from features of the terrain on the Monterey Peninsula, where he'd spent some time.See the movie, and read the book too. It's short.

Victor Flemming, famous helmer for bigger films such as Gone With The Wind, conducts this adventure story with a pleasant, confidant ease, if not a touch of true inspiration.Wallace Beery is brilliant as Long John Silver while Jackie Cooper as Jim plays the perfect sounding board to Beery's loud, large, charismatic performance.Faithful to Mr. Louis Stevenson's chirography of the same tile; in this writer's humble opinion this incarnation of the film captures, most closely, the tone of the original novel - maybe it being closest to the novel chronologically can account for that.Beery delivers a truly classic American performance here, that anyone, even the most media jaded of our day, should have fun following the old tar and his young friend in their adventures across this terraqueous globe.