climbingivy I watched this movie again a few days ago and I marvel at the settings and the huge excellent cast of the 1984 version of The Master of Ballantrae.As far as the writing or the screenplay of this classic,it is not very good.The movie rambled and was a bit confusing at times.Put that aside and watch the movie because of wonderful actors like Michael York,John Gielgud,Finola Huges,Timothy Dalton to name a few.I just watched Michael York,Richard Jordan and Jenny Agutter in the 1976 science fiction classic "Logan's Run".Back to The Master of Ballantrae I give a thumbs up for the costumes,sets,location scenery and the actors.I have this movie.

theowinthrop While nothing can approach reading the actual novel, this television film version of THE MASTER OF BALLENTRAE is far better than the 1953 film version. At the very least it managed to recreate the real personality problems that appear in that egoist James Durrie. Michael York is shown to be an amoral, selfish human being from the start, when he is carrying on an affair with a poor girl of the local village - an affair that leaves the girl with a child that his family has to help support. York never shows any redeeming quality in his James Durrie. In fact one moment I recall (which is not in the novel, but should have been) is when he and his friend Col. Burke (here Timothy Dalton) are commenting on requests from the Durrie family to try to economize while they are living in Paris. York smiles and laughs that they will stop drinking so much brandy and only drink champaign from now on.Richard Thomas plays Henry far better than Anthony Steel did. Steel was too young in the role - he never grew into the money obsessed ant to York's spendthrift grasshopper that Thomas could grown into. But the writers watered it down a little, allowing Thomas to be a bit warmer than Henry is in the novel (and allowing a genuine affection to grow between Thomas and his wife). It is a bearable change in the story.Similarly commendable is the worldwide scope of this film version: there are scenes in the novel in the Caribbean, Europe, and India, which are picked up on as we watch James traveling around the world with Burke. The only difference here is that Burke dies in India (but significantly his death barely fazes his so-called friend James). The pirate section in the Caribbean is also changed because the pirate is Blackbeard (called Captain Teach - Brian Blessed in a nice performance). I don't think that Blackbeard would have killed off his own crew as Blessed did, but it was an interesting section of the film.The finale of the novel in the upstate section of the colony of New York maintains the fantastic trick that Stevenson used in the novel - a trick which may be too fantastic. However, it's results are also watered down here, as only one fatality results.With all these alterations the story's bitterness is handled quite well. It certainly is a worthy addition to the films that have appeared based on Stevenson's works in the movies and on television.

loki we thought this was a great film at our house. we have a large movie library and enjoy this film very much. we found the acting fine. The vistas are breath taking the musical score is excellent the relationship between characters comes off well. the plot moves along at the proper speed not to fast or slow i am not generally a richard tomas fan but i like him in here, he stretches his usually simple acting to something new and good. The movie and its message are profound. People who pan it i think do not understand it. the Errol Flinn version i do not care for at all. this has all the meat without the fluff. wish it would come out on DVD

jbuck_919 Looks like an all-star cast, doesn't it? Forget it. This confusing pseudo-spectacle cannot survive Robert Louis Stevenson's wretchedly convoluted and improbable plot. The only reason I'm commenting is that I'm a sucker for 18th century movies and found this one horribly disappointing.Since there is also no plot summary, an aristocratic family with two sons in constant contention with each other experience various adventures. The "good" son who is not so good succeeds in exiling the "evil" one who is not so evil, but the latter keeps coming back to haunt the former. But every turn of plot, if you want to call it a plot, suffers greatly from lack of credibility.Poor Stevenson. He wrote long adventure stories for boys that were designed to make money. Then he occasionally showed his real talent, as he did in the long short story The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But even there he was not well served, for most of the movie versions want to substitute a monster story for a true psychological thriller.