JohnHowardReid
Considerable liberties have been taken with Stevenson's novel in this instance, presumably in order to accommodate a female lead (Arleen Whelan). The plot has also been re-arranged to allow for an early meeting between David and Breck. Ebenezer's entrance is delayed for well over half-an-hour and the actual kidnapping doesn't take place until the movie is half over. Alas, Warner Baxter is uncomfortably miscast as Breck, and even Freddie Bartholomew does not make much of an impression. It seems obvious that the director could do little with him. The rest of the cast is likewise disappointing, with the exceptions of Reginald Owen's Captain Hoseason and Arthur Hohl's Riach. Even Sir C. Aubrey Smith can make little headway against the jingoistic lines the script hands him. Alfred Werker's direction, alas, is solidly unimaginative – even the sequence on the stairs is poorly handled. In all, Werker fails to utilize the sets to their best pictorial advantage and Toland's camera-work is thus wasted on studiously dull compositions. Only the episodes in the fog before the castle and on board the ship stand out. In all, despite some stirring crowd scenes, the film has the look of a limited budget production. I feel this is not a film that Robert Louis Stevenson would be proud to acknowledge. (I am a direct descendant of Robert Stevenson, RLS's grandfather).
JLRMovieReviews
Freddie Bartholemew is young David Balfour in this Robert Louis Stevenson story. He's at school, when he's told his father has died. He never really knew him too well and was never that close, so he wasn't too broken up, but his world does change dramatically because a letter (left by his father) requests him to go to his Uncle Ebenezer. David finds him living in a huge albeit neglected and run down castle. David learns real quick not to trust him and gets out of there, only to be tricked on to a ship bound for who knows where. David does run into an outlaw accused of murder, played by Warner Baxter, but his questionable allegiances to his king and country are what incite the people and the law against him. Add to this a young lass played by Arleen Whelan who is supposedly going to be with her fiancé, but will she fall in love with Warner instead, who is trying to get her out of the country to him? Will David be rescued and find a place to call home? With a bevy of recognizable faces and good actors, the story-telling of Stevenson, the director's flair and pace, and the presence of the Scottish moors and landscapes, this was one of the best adventures of the 1930s that I've seen in a long time. It may be one of the best adventure films you've never heard of, and can you believe there's no Errol Flynn in sight! Kudos to a job well done to all involved and in keeping the spirit of Stevenson alive!
helenevigne
A pro-peace film, typical of the Munich spirit in 1938. The movie, turn in 1938, is as far from Stevenson that Stevenson himself is -intentionally-from Walter Scott "Rob Roy" for instance.The end, with its pro-peace sentence with"love of country"etc.sounds particularly anachronistic. The plot also neglects the tower scene, which is shorted. We think of what Hitchcock could have done. The novel is such a good plot that something of it does remains in the film. But think of adding a romance in "Treasure Island"for instance..! The casting is good, particularly Freddie Bartholomew and of course Warner Baxter, although not Scottish at all. I appreciate also to find in a second-part John Carradine with his long thin face which could be so impressive in western films and also as the abominable Nazi Heydrich in "Hitler's Madman", some five years later, when the Second World War was at its climax.
dbdumonteil
Based on a novel by Stevenson,at the time when the Scottish rebels were fighting against the English king and his tax collectors .The hero is a young boy,who recalls Jim Hawkins ,David Copperfield as well as John Mohune ("Moonfleet" );as could be expected ,this young "laird" does not take a rebel stand ,he trusts his king and he already speaks like a little man ,a true noble.His "initiation rites " like those of the other characters I mention take him to adulthood.Best moment is the arrival in the wicked uncle's (a Dickensian character,a cross between Murdstone and Uriah Heep)castle ,a place where you eat porridge (ungenerous portions)and where a horror movie could take place.The first of at least five versions (including the MTV one which is twice as long as the others).Well acted.
AD
