This is a better screened version of Robert Louis Stevenson's greatest novel sticking closer to the novel than the Errol Flynn version of 1953. By all means, it has to be admitted, that the Errol Flynn version is more colourful and flamboyant and dramatically more efficient, as it was made for the cinema screen, whereas the Michael York version was only made for television. Michael York is more true to the original very debatable double character of the heir than the superficially flamboyant Errol Flynn, while Richard Thomas as the younger brother Henry makes a very convincing character of his more difficult position true to the novel. Here is also John Gielgud as the old lord Durrisdeer, Brian Blessed as a splendid captain Teach, and, above all, Timothy Dalton as a wonderful colonel Burke, given some extra space here well needed to compensate his disappearance from the novel. Nevertheless, Stevenson isn't slaughtered here like in 1953, the novel is almost preserved intact, with the exception only of the end, which they couldn't resist the temptation of fixing up a little. Stevenson's great novel is a double tragedy of a complicated close relationship between two brothers both loving the same woman but only one getting her, while both film versions ignore the tragedy and makes an entertainment of the complicated story. Pity that this version couldn't stick to Stevenson till the end. That was the only thing wrong with it.