Treasure Island
June 2003 Reviewed by: Wes Phillips Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Treasure Island was Disney's first completely live-action film and it was a rousing success, artistically and commercially. Robert Louis Stevenson's tale of intrigue and derring-do has proven irresistible to moviemakers over the years -- more than a dozen versions have been released, from a silent version in 1918 to Disney's own Treasure Planet of 2002 -- but few have captured the tale's combination of high adventure and spine-tingling menace as well as this 1950 iteration.

Much of that success is due to the film's extraordinary cast. Bobby Driscoll is perfect as the plucky Jim Hawkins, while Robert Newton's Long John Silver provided several generations with a template for the archetypical pirate. Geoffrey Keen, as Israel Hands, provides the film's most intense moments as a pirate determined on slitting young Jim's throat in a scene so chilling that Disney actually edited it out of a VHS version in an attempt to make the feature more "child friendly." A raft of fine character actors flesh out Stevenson's world, making Treasure Island's mise-en-scène phenomenally well wrought for a "children's film." Actually, the movie, like Stevenson's novel, may be aimed at a young audience, but it is crafted to the standards of the most discriminating adults.

The disc is billed as having "fully restored sound and picture" and it is obvious that great care has been taken in its presentation. The picture has a small amount of grain and the focus is somewhat soft, but considering the film's age, it looks very good. Colors are deep and rich and the flesh tones are superb. The video image is free from the hyper-resolution of overly digitized transfers and makes a strong case for the quality of its film-stock source.

The audio is billed as Dolby Digital 5.1, though it was originally mono. There's nothing apparent coming out of the surround channels, but the sound is full and vibrant -- and it is evenly spread across the front three channels, not pinned to the center of the screen. One must judge it a successful remix. There is very little tape hiss and the dynamic range is thrilling, as vividly demonstrated in the storm sequence. However, dialogue sounds quite strident at times, especially when voices are raised.

The disc offers no extras to speak of and, irritatingly, launches with a trailer for The Lion King. An additional six trailers complete the disc's list of "features" -- a trailer for the film itself would have been a nice touch, but the restoration of a classic like Treasure Island is such great news, one feels like an ingrate asking for anything more.

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