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Pirate movies owe a treasure chest of doubloons to "The Adventures of Long John Silver." Their jovial "Yar!" speeches all started with the character of Long John Silver, as portrayed by actor Robert Newton. Future fun-loving pirate characters were simply mimicking Newton's original performance as the famous treasure-seeking pirate. Fortunately there are over 13 half-hour TV episodes showing the great actor's work, thanks to the 2004 DVD release of "The Adventures of Long John Silver."

Long John Silver gained a kind of immortality after Disney's "Treasure Island" in 1950. Newton was again hired to play a pirate in the 1952 movie Blackbeard, and then he joined up with a cobbled-together production company called "Treasure Island Pictures" to film "Long John Silver's Return to Treasure Island." They quickly realized its potential, and the cast and crew were re-united for a colorful TV show in 1955.

It was the last year of Newton's life, and he'd earned a roguish reputation in real life as an unpredictable alcoholic. But he brings a real delight in his star turn as the reckless one-legged pirate, fussed over at the Cask and Anchor tavern by the gentle proprietor, Purity Pinker. Each episode opens with a menacing version of the song "Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum," as the pirate's silhouette suddenly springs to life, raising his sword and snarling a
swashbuckling laugh. Over a map of the Caribbean seas, the pirate's rough voice offers a fine rendition of the poem which opened Robert Louis Stevenson's book. "If schooners, islands, and maroons, and buccaneers, and buried gold...can please, as me they pleased of old, the wiser youngsters of today, so be it! [Har har!]"

Even constrained by a low budget, the producers managed to find sea-faring pirate adventures as well as moments of land-locked intrigue. A Spanish ship heading to enslave an island of natives is dispensed with in a single shot (explained as casks of gunpowder which Silver's allies had attached to its bow). An army of invading Spaniards is surprised before they can arm themselves in an arms dealer's warehouse - sparing the need to film an expensive battle. The real struggle in one quest for gold lies in the cross-country march back to the ship after a saboteurs eliminate Silver's longboats.

And some episodes offer character studies instead, like the pirate's attempts to bring Christmas to a group of unhappy orphans. In "The Necklace," Purity promises she'll save Long John from the gallows if he'll only promise to marry her. Instead the pirate not only schemes his way out of prison, but also out of matrimony.

There's something exhilarating about his over-the-top performance as a man who's one love is the freedom of the open seas. His voice and his character always hint of an exciting past, even before we joined his crew for "The Adventures of Long John Silver."

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