Nor the Moon by Night ( 1958 )

"The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night." - Psalm 121:6 

After years of caring for her mother, gentle nurse Alice Lang ( Belinda Lee ) decides to fly out to Kenya to marry gamekeeper Andrew Miller ( Patrick McGoohan ). Alice has never met Andrew but they have been corresponding with each other by mail for years and she feels she knows him inside and out. She picks an inopportune time to come to Kenya, for a vicious game poacher ( Eric Pohlmann ) is stirring up trouble on the reserve and Andrew is out on the job trying to catch the culprit. Since he will not return for several weeks, his younger brother ( Michael Craig ) decides to be host to Andrew's mail-order bride and falls in love with her himself.

After Andrew is attacked by a lion, Alice nurses him back to health and then must decide whether to marry him out of loyalty or choose his brother, whom she now loves.....

Nor the Moon by Night was based upon Joy Parker's novel of the same name which was originally serialized in a woman's magazine in the 1950s. As a pulp fiction romance adventure, it is a witchdoctor's brew of all of the elements one would expect to find in such a story: elephant stampedes, cobra attacks, a romantic quadrangle, jealousy, dangerous villains, jungle fever, bush fires, and, of course, native superstitions. 

Director Ken Annakin, who had a success with the similarly themed The Planter's Wife ( 1952 ), never lets the 90-minute film get dull and follows each exciting event with something new and different. It was sumptuously filmed on location ( by cinematographer Harry Waxman ) in the beautiful Valley of the Thousand Hills in Natal, South Africa and also within Kruger National Park. Unlike many jungle films of the era, Nor the Moon By Night has no stock footage of crocodiles scurrying into the lake or blurry hippopotamuses fording a river. All of the animal scenes was clearly shot with the cast and crew on location.

Behind the camera, events were just as exciting as on-screen with Belinda Lee attempting suicide, Patrick McGoohan incurring a concussion, Michael Craig nearly drowning, Anna Gaylor falling ill with dysentery and the crew being constantly bitten by snakes and spiders. 

"Most people think Africa's a zoo, where you chuck a monkey under the chin and then go off for a martini."

The principal players of Nor the Moon By Night all give very good performances, especially Michael Craig and Belinda Lee, two extremely popular actors of the 1950s who are underrated today. Also in the cast is Anna Gaylor, a lovely French actress, Joan Brickhill, and Lionel Ngakane.

This post is our contribution to the 6th Annual Rule Brittania Blogathon being hosted by Terence Canote on his blog, A Shroud of Thoughts. Click here to read more reviews of classic British films!

Walt Disney's Dr. Syn : The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh

"On the southern coast of England, there's a legend people tell of days long ago when the great Scarecrow would ride from the jaws of hell...and laugh with a fiendish yell" 

In 1964, Dr.Syn: The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh debuted on The Wonderful World of Color and kiddies all across America and Britain were glued to their television sets to watch the burlap masked avenger of justice ride through Romney Marsh in the dark of night cackling like a banshee. 

The haunting Scarecrow was a folk-hero to the villagers of the sleepy hamlet. They were being grossly overtaxed by King George III and the menfolk were being shanghaied into naval service by press-gangs until whoosh! out of the night rode a savior - a smuggler in fact - named Scarecrow. Robbing from caravans and merchant ships laden with gold en route to the King, the Scarecrow and his henchmen mercilessly pillared their booty to distribute to the poor folk of the parish of Romney Marsh. Only his closet associates Hellspite and The Curlew knew that Scarecrow was in fact Dr. Christopher Syn ( Patrick McGoohan ), the vicar of the local parish. 

Unlike Walt Disney's other television series which spanned across twenty or more 1/2 hour episodes, The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh was structured more like a mini-series and aired in three 1 hour parts. On December 1963, Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow,  a 98 minute feature film version was released in theaters across the pond and here in the States in 1975 ( yes, there was a 12 year delay ). 

Doctor Syn was originally conceived by Russell Thorndike who wrote the novel on the renegade priest turned pirate in 1915 in a book titled "Dr. Syn: A Tale of Romney Marsh". His character is murdered at the end of this novel but he was resurrected from the dead in 1935 and made the dark hero of in another six books. It was the 1960 novel "Christopher Syn" written by American author William Buchanan that caught the eye of Walt Disney who instantly saw its story potential and cleaned it up a bit for his use on his Wonderful World of Color program. 

Sparing no expense he sent director James Neilson, a camera crew and a top-notch English cast including George Cole, Tony Britton, Kay Walsh, Michael Hordern and Geoffrey Keen to film on location at Romney Marsh, located in the southeast of England in the county of Kent. 

For years The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh has been a very difficult program to come by but recently Walt Disney Studios released a magnificently restored collector's edition to the public apart of the Walt Disney Treasures collection. Chock full of special extras such as a featurette about Dr. Syn's origins, an introduction by Leonard Maltin, and the making of the television series, it is a wonderful addition to any collection but alas.....at it's extortionate price it's a DVD not many can afford.

This post is our contribution to the Swashathon being hosted by Movies Silently. Be sure to check out all the other great posts on your favorite sword-clashing films.