Hollywood’s Reinvention of Long John Silver, the Musketeers & Zorro Dates Back to the 1950s

Matt Roush 5 minutes ago

TREASURE ISLAND, Robert Newton, 1950 — Everett Collection

What To Know

Classic adventure characters like Long John Silver, the Three Musketeers, Zorro, and Robin Hood have been repeatedly reinvented since the 1950s.
These stories have seen a wide range of adaptations, from faithful retellings to comedic and imaginative versions.
The enduring popularity of swashbuckling heroes is attributed to audiences’ love for entertaining escapism,

Treasure Island‘s tale of young Jim Hawkins and the treacherous one-legged Long John Silver (with his trademark parrot) has been filmed more than 50 times, with the best-known including 1934’s first talking version (a Turner Classic Movies staple) starring Wallace Beery as Silver and Jackie Cooper as Jim, and the 1950 Disney version featuring Bobby Driscoll as Jim and Robert Newton as Silver, a role he would revisit in a 1954 sequel. More fanciful treatments include a 1996 Muppet Treasure Island movie, with Tim Curry as the infamous Silver, and Disney’s animated sci-fi adventure 2002’s Treasure Planet.

The story is also a natural for TV, with a notably faithful 1990 TV movie starring Charlton Heston as Silver and Christian Bale as Jim, directed by Heston’s son Fraser. It was also the basis for a 10-part Disney series, Return to Treasure Island, in 1986, starring Brian Blessed as Silver. Most recently, a pay-cable prequel, Black Sails, aired for four seasons on Starz, with Toby Stephens and Luke Arnold as younger versions of Captain Flint and Silver.

MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND, Tim Curry, 1996,

Buena Vista Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection

Treasure Island is hardly alone in being repeatedly reinvented for new audiences. Dumas’ The Three Musketeers has been filmed numerous times, including Douglas Fairbanks‘ 1921 silent version, a 1939 musical comedy with Don Ameche and the Ritz Brothers, more faithfully in 1948 by MGM with Gene Kelly joined by Van Heflin and Gig Young, and director Richard Lester’s celebrated two-part 1970s adaptation featuring Richard Chamberlain, Michael York, Oliver Reed and Frank Finlay, with Raquel Welch and a villainous Faye Dunaway as eye candy. (And here’s a bit of swashbuckling trivia: A 2004 Russian-Ukrainian musical comedy treatment starred future Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as D’Artagnan opposite female Musketeers.)

Zorro is another gift that keeps on giving, with Fairbanks succeeded in the movies most notably by Tyrone Power (1940), George Hamilton (in the 1981 spoof Zorro, The Gay Blade) and Antonio Banderas (1998), and on TV memorably by Guy Williams (Lost in Space) for Disney and ABC in the 1950s and Duncan Regehr in the 1990s in a Family Channel series.

Walt Disney Co./Courtesy: Everett Collection

Though Fairbanks and Flynn are by far the best-known Robin Hoods, that hasn’t stopped new generations of movie stars from taking up the bow and arrow, including Kevin Costner in 1991, and in the new century, Russell Crowe and Taron Egerton. Just last year, MGM+ presented a gritty version of Robin Hood, starring Jack Patten, that asked us to call the hero “Rob.” (I’m sorry. He’ll always be Robin to me.)

What explains our affection for these hale fellows? The answer lies in our desire and unquenchable appetite for upbeat, boisterously entertaining escapism. As Salon‘s Charles Taylor reminds us, “Allowing us to believe in heroes, and allowing us to laugh with them, is as noble a feat as any a swashbuckler has ever accomplished.”

Touché!

TCM this September is celebrating the suave swashbucklers of early cinema with stars like Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Douglas Fairbanks, and more on the network all month long. Click here for the full schedule of movies.

For the full September TCM schedule and highlights, click here.

This article originally appeared in the April 2026 Issue of ReMIND. For more sword and swashbuckling fun, ReMIND has a full issue dedicated to the men and ladies we swooned over. You can purchase it at the link below.