Wallace Beery as Long John Silver in 1934–still the best!
One of our favorite movies is Treasure Island, the 1934 version with Wallace Beery as Long John Silver and Jackie Cooper as Jim Hawkins.
But there are many movie versions of this story, and I thought Patty might enjoy receiving one for Christmas. So I looked at all the versions that have been filmed since 1950.
Not even classic films and stories are safe from knuckleheads who want to fundamentally transform them.
In one version, Dr. Livesey is portrayed as a coward. In another, Squire Trelawney is a treacherous rogue. In yet another, the doctor and the squire get together to cut Jim out of his share of the treasure, forcing him to side with Long John and the pirates. In a fourth, everybody’s rotten.
I don’t propose to add any of these to our movie collection.
Well, it raises a question, doesn’t it?
Has our culture been so debauched, so corrupted, that no one can even tell a story anymore? Not even a story that has already been written? Are they unable to face themselves in the mirror unless they’ve taken a wonderful, straight, adventure story and transformed it into a post-modern gaggle of nasty characters who all belong in jail? Is this what convinces them that they’re sophisticated?
This age is no longer able to tell the difference between sophisticated and sophomoric.
Wallace Beery, you still da man.