User reviews

The set up on this film sounds like one of those fake movie announcements that pop up on the internet around April 1rst - an Italian miniseries adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's TREASURE ISLAND but set in space and starring Anthony Quinn as Long John Silver. But it is real and I've seen it. Young Jim Hawkins finds himself going on a intergalactic journey when Billy Bones (Ernest Borgnine, who has the sense to get out early) hands him a treasure map. Directed by Antonio Margheriti, this actually sticks pretty dang close to Stevenson's classic (yes, I've read a book) and features all of the famous bits from the book except with the occasional spaceship and android running around. Quinn just barely saves himself from Richard Harris STRIKE COMMANDO 2 levels of Italian exploitation embarrassment because this production actually looks like they had a budget to work with. There are actually some pretty impressive space ship set here. Plenty of familiar faces fill out the cast including David Warbeck as Dr. Livesy, John Morgan as Hands, Klaus Löwitsch as Capt. Smollet, Bobby Rhodes as Black Dog, Sal Borgese as Morgan, Biagio Pelligra as Pew and Hal Yamanouchi as the amusingly named Pete. The version I watched was actually a condensed one that runs 2 and 1/2 hours.

I recently acquired this little gem which is next-to-impossible to find over here in the United States. I wasn't prepared for a full 8 hour miniseries split up into four parts! I realize a lot of early 80's Italian films began as miniseries and were later cut down to feature length and sometime rescored for their American release, such as CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, MARCO POLO, HEARTS AND ARMOUR, and YOR THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE, but to my knowledge this film never appeared on American TV despite the top-notch cast.

Basically this flick is what you'd expect from the title and director (if you've seen any of Margheriti's early 60's space operas). Some kid ventures off into space in a ratty old spaceship with a ragtag crew of cut-throat pirates legged Long John Silver in search of a long-lost treasure on a remote planet. The film follows the original novel pretty closely though it drops a few characters and adds a few others. Mostly the outer-space twist on the whole story works to the film's detriment, with lots of silly changes like the fact that the blind man Pew's walking stick is instead a motion sensor.

As I said before, the cast is uncommonly great for such an obviously low-budget effort. Anthony Quinn stars as Long John Silver, David Warbeck is the doctor, and Phillipe Leroy is Squire Tralaney. On top of that we have Ernest Borgnine as Billy Bones, Biagio Pelligra as Pew, and among the pirates such familiar faces as Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Bobby Rhodes, Al Yamanouchi, and Sal Borgese! It's a wonder it seems no one has heard of this movie, as it really isn't that bad at all. Though at times it does feel awfully long and drawn-out, the special effects are much better than Margheriti's 60's offerings, though they range from excellent to marginally terrible. The Hispaniola spacecraft only looks about 2 feet tall in some shots and a lot of the astronauts floating in space look suspiciously like barbie dolls. The dubbing isn't too great either especially with Giovanni Lombardo Radice who's dull voice doesn't go at all with his over-the-top sleazy performance as the head mutineer. There's a wealth of impressive sets and some escapist fun (like the climactic battle in Dinosaur Valley), but too many goofy effects and weak action scenes to make it any better than so-so. I couldn't help but enjoy spending a good half a day sitting through this though. Margheriti injects a lot of the fun into this film in terms of strange camera angles, like shots from behind small objects or up at the actors from floor level. This was his second to last science fiction film, as his last would be the unfairly critically snuffed ALIEN FROM THE DEEP which he shot in the Phillipines for Franco Gaudenzi.

I'm surprised someone has written about this movie, because you cannot find it easily in the shops.

The movie tells the story of a 12-year old boy, Jimmy (played bij Itaco Nardulli), who lives in the year 2300 at Sicily in an abandoned spacecentre. His mother owns the inn. This is the place where Billy Bones arrives, and later on the scoundrels: they are looking for the treasuremap. Of course the story is well-known. But this time it all happens in outer space. A marvellous idea, because I like sf-films.

Fortunately I have got this film on VHS-tape as one complete movie with a length of 2h and 25 minutes; English spoken with Dutch subtitles. Unfortunately the quality of the tape is not as it should be. I will try to make a scan of the cover, so that Imdb can show it on the empty place of the page of "Tresure Island in outer space" or "Isola del tesoro,L" if they still want it of course.

My opinion is: a feel-good movie, suitable for all ages above 8, with great adventure and humour and suspence. I will vote for this film and mark it with a 9.

Greetings from The Netherlands, Govert van der Kemp.

When I am writing this comment it is nearly 3.00am in the morning. I had this flash of memory coming back to me which reminds me of this gem. I was hardly 10 years old when I saw it for the first time.I fondly remember it for its contrast to the original novel I read later in my life. Ever since I have been searching its name and origins. Glimpses I remember include a blind greedy man with the stick being betrayed, a beautiful circular space craft called Hispaniola and the new planet full of leeches and broken space crafts. The series marries a teenager interest in adventures to his obsession about space and alien life. A special thanks to all who contributed before me regarding info on this beautiful series. I think sites like Amazon.com should store a few copies so that it is not lost forever. As for me I wish I could watch it again but maybe this wish will never be fulfilled. After seventeen years, thanks to the internet, I now know what to look for.

First of all...why?-Because this movie got so deep into my heart being one of those movies which surprised me in a very special way becoming the one i somehow waited and had wished to be created and still it over passed all my expectation and fulfilled my every childish dream.

The movie has something mysterious and magic in the same time,combining the fairy tale of childhood which parents used to read us at bedtime about pirates and treasures with the teenager's dream of time conquest and space traveling mixing them both with intrigue and adventure,creating an unique feeling of something true and possible in the future,..creating in the teenager's mind -The Dream!