Friday, July 21, 2017

Friday's Film Adaption: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson


Summary:
The most popular pirate story ever written in English, featuring one of literature’s most beloved “bad guys,” Treasure Island has been happily devoured by several generations of boys—and girls—and grownups. Its unforgettable characters include: young Jim Hawkins, who finds himself owner of a map to Treasure Island, where the fabled pirate booty is buried; honest Captain Smollett, heroic Dr. Livesey, and the good-hearted but obtuse Squire Trelawney, who help Jim on his quest for the treasure; the frightening Blind Pew, double-dealing Israel Hands, and seemingly mad Ben Gunn, buccaneers of varying shades of menace; and, of course, garrulous, affable, ambiguous Long John Silver, who is one moment a friendly, laughing, one-legged sea-cook . . . and the next a dangerous pirate leader!

The unexpected and complex relationship that develops between Silver and Jim helps transform what seems at first to be a simple, rip-roaring adventure story into a deeply moving study of a boy’s growth into manhood, as he learns hard lessons about friendship, loyalty, courage and honor—and the uncertain meaning of good and evil.


Chapter I
The Old Sea Dog at the "Admiral Benbow"
Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17-, and go back to the time when my father kept the "Admiral Benbow" inn, and the brown old seaman, with the sabre cut, first took up his lodging under our roof.

I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow; a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man; his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat; his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails; and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards:-

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared, called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste, and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard.

"This is a handy cove," says he, at length; "and a pleasant sittyated grog-shop. Much company, mate?"

My father told him no, verylittle company, the more was the pity.

"Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me. Here you, matey," he cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'll stay here a bit," he continued. "I'm a plain man; rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. What you mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I see what you're at-there;" and he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. "You can tell me when I've worked through that," says he, looking as fierce as a commander.

And, indeed, bad as his clothes were, and coarsely as he spoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast; but seemed like a mate or skipper, accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The man who came with the barrow told us the mail had set him down the morning before at the "Royal George;" that he had inquired what inns there were along the coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and described as lonely, had chosen it from the others for his place of residence. And that was all we could learn of our guest.

He was a very silent man by custom. All day he hung round the cove, or upon the cliffs, with a brass telescope; all evening he sat in a corner of the parlour next the fire, and drank rum and water very strong. Mostly he would not speak when spoken to; only look up sudden and fierce, and blow through his nose like a fog-horn; and we and the people who came about our house soon learned to let him be. Every day, when he came back from his stroll, he would ask if any seafaring men had gone by along the road? At first we thought it was the want of company of his own kind that made him ask this question; but at last we began to see he was desirous to avoid them. When a seaman put up at the "Admiral Benbow" (as now and then some did, making by the coast road for Bristol), he would look in at him through the curtained door before he entered the parlour; and he was always sure to be as silent as a mouse when any such was present. For me, at least, there was no secret about the matter; for I was, in a way, a sharer in his alarms. He had taken me aside one day, and promised me a silver fourpenny on the first of every month if I would only keep my "weather-eye open for a seafaring man with one leg," and let him know the moment he appeared. Often enough, when the first of the month came round, and I applied to him for my wage, he would only blow through his nose at me, and stare me down; but before the week was out he was sure to think better of it, bring me my fourpenny piece, and repeat his orders to look out for "the seafaring man with one leg."

How that personage haunted my dreams, I need scarcely tell you. On stormy nights, when the wind shook the four corners of the house, and the surf roared along the cove and up the cliffs, I would see him in a thousand forms, and with a thousand diabolical expressions. Now the leg would be cut off at the knee, now at the hip; now he was a monstrous kind of a creature who had never had but the one leg, and that in the middle of his body. To see him leap and run and pursue me over hedge and ditch was the worst of nightmares. And altogether I paid pretty dear for my monthly fourpenny piece, in the shape of these abominable fancies.

But though I was so terrified by the idea of the seafaring man with one leg, I was far less afraid of the captain himself than anybody else who knew him. There were nights when he took a deal more rum and water than his head would carry; and then he would sometimes sit and sing his wicked, old, wild sea-songs, minding nobody; but sometimes he would call for glasses round, and force all the trembling company to listen to his stories or bear a chorus to his singing. Often I have heard the house shaking with "Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum;" all the neighbours joining in for dear life, with the fear of death upon them, and each singing louder than the other, to avoid remark. For in these fits he was the most over-riding companion ever known; he would slap his hand on the table for silence all round; he would fly up in a passion of anger at a question, or sometimes because none was put, and so he judged the company was not following his story. Nor would he allow any one to leave the inn till he had drunk himself sleepy and reeled off to bed.

His stories were what frightened people worst of all. Dreadful stories they were; about hanging, and walking the plank, and storms at sea, and the Dry Tortugas, and wild deeds and places on the Spanish Main. By his own account he must have lived his life among some of the wickedest men that God ever allowed upon the sea; and the language in which he told these stories shocked our plain country people almost as much as the crimes that he described. My father was always saying the inn would be ruined, for people would soon cease coming there to be tyrannised over and put down, and sent shivering to their beds; but I really believe his presence did us good. People were frightened at the time, but on looking back they rather liked it; it was a fine excitement in a quiet country life; and there was even a party of the younger men who pretended to admire him, calling him a "true sea-dog," and a "real old salt," and such like names, and saying there was the sort of man that made England terrible at sea.

In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us; for he kept on staying week after week, and at last month after month, so that all the money had been long exhausted, and still my father never plucked up the heart to insist on having more. If ever he mentioned it, the captain blew through his nose so loudly, that you might say he roared, and stared my poor father out of the room. I have seen him wringing his hands after such a rebuff, and I am sure the annoyance and the terror he lived in must have greatly hastened his early and unhappy death.

All the time he lived with us the captain made no change whatever in his dress but to buy some stockings from a hawker. One of the cocks of his hat having fallen down, he let it hang from that day forth, though it was a great annoyance when it blew. I remember the appearance of his coat, which he patched himself up-stairs in his room, and which, before the end, was nothing but patches. He never wrote or received a letter, and he never spoke with any but the neighbours, and with these, for the most part, only when drunk on rum. The great sea-chest none of us had ever seen open.

He was only once crossed, and that was towards the end, when my poor father was far gone in a decline that took him off. Dr. Livesey came late one afternoon to see the patient, took a bit of dinner from my mother, and went into the parlour to smoke a pipe until his horse should come down from the hamlet, for we had no stabling at the old "Benbow." I followed him in, and I remember observing the contrast the neat, bright doctor, with his powder as white as snow, and his bright, black eyes and pleasant manners, made with the coltish country folk, and above all, with that filthy, heavy, bleared scarecrow of a pirate of ours, sitting far gone in rum, with his arms on the table. Suddenly he-the captain, that is-began to pipe up his eternal song:-

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

Drink and the devil had done for the rest-

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

At first I had supposed "the dead man's chest" to be that identical big box of his up-stairs in the front room, and the thought had been mingled in my nightmares with that of the one-legged seafaring man. But by this time we had all long ceased to pay any particular notice to the song; it was new, that night, to nobody but Dr. Livesey, and on him I observed it did not produce an agreeable effect, for he looked up for a moment quite angrily before he went on with his talk to old Taylor, the gardener, on a new cure for the rheumatics. In the meantime, the captain gradually brightened up at his own music, and at last flapped his hand upon the table before him in a way we all knew to mean-silence. The voices stopped at once, all but Dr. Livesey's; he went on as before, speaking clear and kind, and drawing briskly at his pipe between every word or two. The captain glared at him for a while, flapped his hand again, glared still harder, and at last broke out with a villainous, low oath: "Silence, there, between decks!"

"Were you addressing me, sir?" says the doctor; and when the ruffian had told him, with another oath, that this was so, "I have only one thing to say to you, sir," replies the doctor, "that if you keep on drinking rum, the world will soon be quit of a very dirty scoundrel!"

The old fellow's fury was awful. He sprang to his feet, drew and opened a sailor's clasp-knife, and, balancing it open on the palm of his hand, threatened to pin the doctor to the wall.

The doctor never so much as moved. He spoke to him, as before, over his shoulder, and in the same tone of voice; rather high, so that all the room might hear, but perfectly calm and steady:-

"If you do not put that knife this instant in your pocket, I promise, upon my honour, you shall hang at the next assizes."

Then followed a battle of looks between them; but the captain soon knuckled under, put up his weapon, and resumed his seat, grumbling like a beaten dog.

"And now, sir," continued the doctor, "since I now know there's such a fellow in my district, you may count I'll have an eye upon you day and night. I'm not a doctor only; I'm a magistrate; and if I catch a breath of complaint against you, if it's only for a piece of incivility like to-night's, I'll take effectual means to have you hunted down and routed out of this. Let that suffice."

Soon after Dr. Livesey's horse came to the door, and he rode away; but the captain held his peace that evening, and for many evenings to come.

Chapter II
Black Dog Appears
and Disappears
It was not very long after this that there occurred the first of the mysterious events that rid us at last of the captain, though not, as you will see, of his affairs. It was a bitter cold winter, with long, hard frosts and heavy gales; and it was plain from the first that my poor father was little likely to see the spring. He sank daily, and my mother and I had all the inn upon our hands; and were kept busy enough, without paying much regard to our unpleasant guest.

It was one January morning, very early-a pinching, frosty morning-the cove all grey with hoar-frost, the ripple lapping softly on the stones, the sun still low and only touching the hilltops and shining far to seaward. The captain had risen earlier than usual, and set out down the beach, his cutlass swinging under the broad skirts of the old blue coat, his brass telescope under his arm, his hat tilted back upon his head. I remember his breath hanging like smoke in his wake as he strode off, and the last sound I heard of him, as he turned the big rock, was a loud snort of indignation, as though his mind was still running upon Dr. Livesey.

Well, mother was up-stairs with father; and I was laying the breakfast-table against the captain's return, when the parlour door opened, and a man stepped in on whom I had never set my eyes before. He was a pale, tallowy creature, wanting two fingers of the left hand; and, though he wore a cutlass, he did not look much like a fighter. I had always my eye open for seafaring men, with one leg or two, and I remember this one puzzled me. He was not sailorly, and yet he had a smack of the sea about him too.

Film
A young boy and a pirate clash over buried treasure.

Release Date: June 22, 1950
Release Time: 96 minutes

Cast:
Bobby Driscoll as Jim Hawkins
Robert Newton as Long John Silver
Basil Sydney as Captain Smollett
Walter Fitzgerald as Squire Trelawney
Denis O'Dea as Dr. Livesey
Finlay Currie as Capt. Billy Bones
Ralph Truman as George Merry
Geoffrey Keen as Israel Hands
Geoffrey Wilkinson as Ben Gunn
John Laurie as Blind Pew
Francis de Wolff as Black Dog
David Davies as Mr. Arrow
John Gregson as Redruth
Andrew Blackett as Gray
William Devlin as Morgan
Howard Douglas as Williams
Harry Locke as Haggott
Sam Kydd as Cady
Stephen Jack as Job
Harold Jamieson as Scully
Diarmuid Kelly as Bolen
Patrick Troughton as Roach



Author Bio:
Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of English literature. He was greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling and Vladimir Nabokov.

Most modernist writers dismissed him, however, because he was popular and did not write within their narrow definition of literature. It is only recently that critics have begun to look beyond Stevenson's popularity and allow him a place in the Western canon.

On December 3rd, 1894, he died of an apparent cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 44.


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Author Spotlight: Patricia Charles

Author Bio:
Patricia Charles remembers going to the public library when she was a small child. The library was only a block away. Because she was too young to cross the street alone, her older brother reluctantly volunteered to take her. Of course, she wouldn’t let him carry her books. She was a big girl. She had so many books she had to balance them with her chin, and she cried when she had to return them. Books have been in her life as long as she can remember.

Her love of books eventually lead her to the theatre. She has a Master’s of Arts in Drama and Communication and a Master’s of Library and Information Sciences. Naturally, she is a librarian, a medical librarian.

She is a member of the Romance Writers of American, Southern Louisiana Chapter of RWA and Celtic Hearts Romance Writers. In 2013, she won Best Historical and Highest Overall Score in the Dixie Kane Contest.

Patricia lives on the Gulf Coast, having moved there from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Frodo, her large 16-pound Pomeranian, likes to lick her feet while she writes.


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Unconditional Surrender
Summary:
Nothing could drag Kristen McConnell back to re-enacting. Nothing, except the wedding of her best friend. Maybe Creed Graham wouldn’t attend the 150th Battle of the Wilderness. Maybe she wouldn’t see him even if he was.

When Creed discovered Civil War reenacting, he knew it held everything he loved: history, horses, sleeping under the stars, guys drinking beer by the campfire. There was nothing better. Then he met Kirsten McConnell. And she ruined everything for him.

The Wilderness held his salvation. He knew she would return after three long years. This time he would erase her from his heart for good.

While the Battle of the Wilderness rages in explosions of cannon fire, Kirsten can no longer avoid Creed. Will they continue their war or will there be an Unconditional Surrender?

Genre: Contemporary Romance with Military Elements

Crescent Moon
Summary:
Sinner or saint?

When Celine St. Pierre is murdered under the canopy of oaks on St. Charles Avenue, questions arise about this New Orleans sainted woman, and Assistant District Attorney Claressa Dupré vows to find the answers. Top of her list of suspects is the sexy Texan, West Morgan, IV.

Wealthy oil baron Weston Morgan, IV, arrived in New Orleans on a mission to return to Texas what Celine St. Pierre stole from him and his family. But the woman’s death throws a monkey wrench in the works and pins him as the top suspect in the murder investigation. Further complicating his life is the beautiful but determined Clarissa Dupré, whom he can’t seem to get close enough to or far enough from.

As the investigation spirals out of control, Clarissa and Morgan find that nothing is simple in The Big Easy.

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Unconditional Surrender
Where else in the entire world but at a reenactment could one cross the lines of history, camp near a forest and go shopping at the same time? She marveled at the people in period clothing as they browsed through the shops—a 19th century shopping mall made of canvas tents. Thousands of men, women and children wandered through the tents for items made especially for reenactors.

The sounds of approaching horses jarred her attention from the earrings. Her hands trembled so much she dropped the jewelry back into the case.

Just because there were cavalry, didn’t mean Creed would be riding with them. Maybe he hadn’t even come, Kirsten rationalized. Perhaps he gave up reenacting long ago.

But as the pounding hooves on the dirt road grew closer, her heart mimicked their thunder. She wiped the perspiration from her quivering hands onto her skirt.

Get it over with. You’ll be anticipating him to be on every horse you hear or see. On the other hand, if she could avoid him for the weekend, she wouldn’t have to address the problems that plagued her so long.

Yet, if she came face-to-face with him again, she might be disappointed. Could it be that only his memory caused her heart to flutter? Impulse drove her to the edge of the sutler’s tent. Hiding behind the rows of Confederate butternut jackets hanging at the edge of the tent so he wouldn’t see her, she peeked over the clothes as the tide of Yankee blue surged upon her. She glanced from face to face, searching for the one who made her anticipating heart threaten to burst from her body.

The snake-like column drew to an end. No Creed. Relief overcame curiosity, and she glided from her hiding place.

Then, as if the devil played with her heart, he appeared at the tail of the procession. Their eyes met. He squinted through the dust at her. Beneath his slouch hat, a frown creased his forehead, and his teeth clenched.

Recognition. Yes, he recognized her, and she recognized something also. If she ever doubted, she appreciated that he was still the most handsome man in the world, at least to her. Steeling herself, Kirsten faced the man she would love forever.

As he neared, she recalled his tousled hair when he woke at her side and how his original declaration of love caused her to sob so hard she couldn’t answer. Most of all, she remembered the look in his eyes as they glowed with desire.

Yet today was different, not just because they already had loved each other or because he proposed and she accepted. Her heart still trembled as it had every time she looked at him, but today was different mainly because a young boy, perhaps two years old, sat before him on the saddle. The child was a close duplicate of Creed from his black hair covered with a Yankee kepi to the boots on his tiny feet. He looked up at Creed with a smile and adoration.

Crescent Moon
The evidence against West Morgan in Celine St. Pierre’s death practically stuffed the valise she carried. Yet she lacked the most important: motive. Why had Morgan come to New Orleans? Why had he killed Celine? What circumstances had driven him to murder? Not that she needed a motive, but she’d learned juries preferred it.

Astonishingly, his attorneys had asked to meet with her.

“Mr. Morgan.” She glanced up from her notes. Eyes cold, calculating, and conceited gazed back at her through hooded lids. Celine St. Pierre hadn’t stood a chance.

“I only have a few questions.”

“Take all the time you need,” he answered. “I’ve nothing else on my agenda today.”

“Why did you kill Celine St. Pierre?”

“I didn’t.”

“Didn’t you?” She glanced at the three attorneys, and suddenly she envisioned the three monkeys: see, hear, and speak no evil. “Then prove it to me.”

Removing the Stetson, he threaded his fingers through his hair. “Hell, Honey, I don’t have to. Remember? I’m innocent until you prove otherwise.”

Honey? She’d worked long and hard to get where she was. No one called her, “Honey.”

His hand was on the doorknob.

“Mr. Morgan, you agreed to answer some questions.”

After several anxious moments, Morgan shrugged off his attorney’s instructions not to answer. “Ask away.”

Glancing back at the note pad where she had listed the questions, she proceeded. “Why did you sell more than half of your assets before you came to New Orleans?”

He sat in the hard wooden chair at the end of the table, like a corporate giant ruling his boardroom. Crossing one leg over the other, he rested his ankle on his knee and his Stetson on the table. His long legs appeared to go on forever.

She asked again, “Why did you sell off your assets?”

“Ask my accountant.”

“I have.” She waited, hoping he would reply. Nothing.

“Why did you put all of it into checking accounts?”

“I’ve been to New Orleans before,” he said, and Claressa inched forward, anticipating his answer, the last puzzle piece. “Knowing your city’s reputation, I didn’t want to carry that much cash on me.”

Smart aleck. “And why would you need that much money during your visit?” At least this cowboy didn’t spurt four-letter words at her. Or lunge for her throat. Not yet, anyway.

Thankful for the civil atmosphere, she took a deep breath and a different route. “How long have you known Celine St. Pierre?”

No response.

“Mr. Morgan . . . “

“West.”

“Mr. Morgan, why did you kill Mrs. St. Pierre?”

He shot forward so quickly that Claressa jerked back. West leaned as far as possible over the wide table and demanded, “Look at me.”

She tilted her chin defiantly, met his gaze, and tried to seem undisturbed.

“I’m successful. I’m rich. Why would I have to kill someone?”

“Rich people kill all the time. Don’t you read the news? Why would you kill Mrs. St. Pierre? What’s the connection?”


Unconditional Surrender

Crescent Moon




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