Return to Treasure Island (film)

Return to Treasure Island is a 1954 American adventure film directed by Ewald André Dupont and starring Tab Hunter, Dawn Addams and Porter Hall. Shot in Pathécolor it was distributed by United Artists. The film is about modern-day adventurers (circa 1950s) exploring the desert island from Robert Louis Stevenson's frequently filmed 1883 novel Treasure Island. Though Stevenson's story was fictional, it is treated as historical for the purposes of the film's plot.

Cast

 * Tab Hunter as Clive Stone
 * Dawn Addams as Jamesina "Jamie" Hawkins
 * Porter Hall as Maximillian "Maxie" Harris
 * James Seay as Felix Newman
 * Harry Lauter as Parker
 * William Cottrell as Cookie
 * Lane Chandler as Capt. Cardigan
 * Henry Rowland as Williams
 * Dayton Lummis as Capt. Flint
 * Robert Long as Long John Silver
 * Ken Terrell as Thompson

Production
Location filming took place at Palos Verdes. In September 1953 a deal was signed where the film would be distributed by UA under the Edward Small banner.

Reception
According to Tan Hunter, the film "prompted Dawn Addams to immediately marry Prince Don Vittorio Massimo and move to Italy. It prompted Dupont to never make another movie. His decision or not, I don't know. For my part, whatever strides I’d made as an actor were lost in the stink of this fiasco. Even my mother weighed in with a brutally frank assessment: “You were lousy,’ she pronounced, bolting from the theater lobby."

Variety said the film "shapes up favorably for its intended market. For despite an implausible pulp fiction story, Return to Treasure Island does better than par the coursfe in sex, gunplay, chicanery and aquatic scenery."