On the surface Captain Clegg, known in the States as Night Creatures, Hammer‘s preferred choice of title for their aborted adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend from 1957, looks like one of the most borderline of the company’s “horror” films and seems at first to have more in common with the strand of action-adventure films typified by their brace of pirate films, The Pirates of Blood River (1962) and The Devil-ship Pirates (1964). But unlike the more family-friendly pirate romps, Captain Clegg is full of macabre little touches – access to secret tunnels through a tombstone, smugglers using a hears to transport their illicit gains and disguising themselves as the ghostly “marsh phantoms” – that in the hands of director Peter Graham Scott help it deftly walk the tightrope between Gothic horror and costumed actioner.
A cracking opening scene sees Milton Reid‘s traitorous pirate mutilated and left to die, lashed to a tree on some remote desert island before jumping forward many years to 1792 to find bushy-bearded favourite Sidney Bromley being frightened to death by skeletal phantoms on a misty Romney Marshes. The phantoms are the work of a local gang of smugglers using the ghostly apparitions to frighten away nosey locals from their nefarious nocturnal activities around the south coast town of Dymchurch. Captain Collier (Patrick Allen) of the Royal Navy arrives to investigate reports of alcohol smuggling and has with his the now mute mulatto from the opening scene. The village parson, Dr Blyss (Peter Cushing) seems to anger the mulatto as well it might – it turns out he’s really the long though dead Captain Clegg, the pirate who hacked out his tongue so many tears earlier. As Collier and his men start getting closer to uncovering the smuggling operation, the gang, which seems to count among its number most of the villagers, resort to murder and attempt to frighten off the sailors in their guise as the “marsh phantoms.”
It’s almost pointless to note that Peter Cushing is excellent (we really should just take that as read) and he’s clearly enjoying his twin role here – so much so that he started writing a sequel to the film, Waiting Revenge, many years later that sadly remained unfinished. Even by his own very high standards this is a great performance and he’s given a good run for his money by the always watchable Michael Ripper who gets some lively business as Mipps, napping, Dracula-like, in one of the coffins at his coffin making workshop which doubles as the gang’s base. Oliver Reed again makes for a great as the squire’s son who has thrown in his lot with smugglers, Patrick Allen is a typically bullish hero and Yvonne Romain more or less reprises her serving girl role from The Curse of the Werewolf (1961). It’s a fantastic cast who seem to be responding enthusiastically to the script and Scott‘s lively direction.
Captain Clegg was based on the novel Dr Syn: A Tale of Romney Marches by Russell Thorndike by Anthony Hinds writing, as ever, as John Elder though you’ll find no mention of the script’s literary source in the credits. Dr Syn, renamed Dr Blyss here, had first appeared in print in 1915 and went on to appear in a further six novels, Doctor Syn on the High Seas (1935), Doctor Syn Returns (1935), Further Adventures of Doctor Syn (1936), Courageous Exploits of Doctor Syn (1938), Amazing Quest of Doctor Syn (1939) and Shadow of Doctor Syn (1944).
George Arliss had first played him on screen in Roy William Neill’s Dr Syn in 1937 and would turn up again, on television, in a two-part Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color adaptation, The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh in 1963. The latter would be re-edited into the feature film Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow, released on a double bill with The Sword in the Stone (1963) and was edited again for its later US theatrical release. The decision to change the title and neglect a credit for Thorndike (a sometime actor who appeared in the 1948 Hamlet as did Cushing, and full-time brother to Dame Sybil Thorndike) was in part an attempt to head off any complaints – or worse still legal actions – from Disney, who were happy to let Hammer make their film so long as they didn’t use the name Dr Syn.
Hammer‘s version of the film is rollicking good fun and a lot more enjoyable that either of the other versions. Scott directs some marvellous set pieces, like the marvellous sight of the phantom riders, galloping across the marshes, as terrifying a sight as anything Hammer had given us to that point, and there’s a genuinely touching pathos about the climax. Sadly, he wouldn’t direct for Hammer again, but he went on to a prolific career in television where he directed the classic kids’ chillers Children of the Stones (1977) and Into the Labyrinth (1981-1982) as well as episodes of The Avengers (1961-1969) and The Prisoner (1967-1968).
Captain Clegg was released on a double bill with Terence Fisher’s The Phantom of the Opera (1962) which was panned by the critics and the bill suffered accordingly. Which is a shame as Captain Clegg is one of Hammer‘s finest adventure films and it remained a personal favourite of Cushing who had long been a fan of the books.
Crew
Directed by: Peter Graham Scott; A Hammer-Major production; Produced by: John Temple-Smith; Screenplay by: John Elder [real name Anthony Hinds]; Additional Dialogue: Barbara S. Harper; Novel: Dr Syn – A Tale of Romney Marches by Russell Thorndike [uncredited]; Director of Photography: Arthur Grant; Supervising Editor: James Needs; Editor: Eric Boyd-Perkins; Music Composed by: Don Banks; Sound Recordist: Jock May; Wardrobe Supervisor: Molly Arbuthnot; Make-up Artist: Roy Ashton; Hair Stylist: Frieda Steiger; Special Effects: Les Bowie; Production Designer: Bernard Robinson
Cast
Peter Cushing (Dr Blyss/Captain Clegg); Yvonne Romain (Imogene); Patrick Allen (Captain Collier); Oliver Reed (Harry); Michael Ripper (Jeremiah Mipps); Martin Benson (Rash); David Lodge (bosun); Daphne Anderson (Mrs Rash); Derek Francis (Squire); Milton Reid (mulatto); Jack MacGowran (frightened man); Terry Scully (2nd sailor); Peter Halliday (1st sailor); Rupert Osborn (Gerry); Sydney Bromley (Tom Ketch); Gordon Rollings (Wurzel); Bob Head (Peg-Leg); Colin Douglas (pirate bosun)
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