SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Ben Larson Hammer Studios is responsible for giving us Peter Cushing, and he gives a masterful performance in this film that is a blend of horror, suspense, and comedy.Cushing is the ,Reverend Dr. Blyss (Dr. Syn in the novel), who came to a poor village and transformed it. As the leader of the town, he tries to protect them from the King's men.Character actor Michael Ripper, a veteran of more than 25 Hammer films, was excellent as the coffin maker.The story itself was fascinating, even if it was easy to guess the big secret once the King's men came to town.Well worth the time invested.

mlraymond I had seen this movie once, on the late show when I was a kid, and had always remembered it for its mix of pirate themes with spooky undertones. Having seen it recently for the first time in years, I was delighted to find that it is even better than I remembered, and is actually one of the best movies from Hammer Studios, of all their varied types of storyline.It looks wonderful, with rich colors and excellent period costumes. It has the look of a a higher budgeted picture, well rounded characters, good dialogue, humor, suspense, and romance. There are lots of surprises and never a dull moment.Special mention must be made of the performances of Michael Ripper as coffin maker Jeremiah Mipps and Peter Cushing as the Reverend Dr. Blyss.Ripper is given lots of scenes and choice dialogue, showcasing his comic abilities beautifully. Cushing nearly steals the picture with his delightful portrayal of the kindly village parson with a colorful past. Yvonne Romain and Oliver Reed make an appealing pair of young lovers, and Patrick Allen is good as the no nonsense Customs official come to investigate reports of smuggling, with excellent support from David Lodge as his jovially sinister boatswain.This is a wonderful movie for Cushing fans, Hammer cultists, and viewers who love pirate stories. This is probably the best of Hammer's historical adventures, with just a touch of the macabre. Highly recommended.

funkyfry This is a very interesting and exciting costume drama from Hammer Films, the U.K. studio best known for its series of classic horror films. Peter Cushing, who appeared as Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Van Helsing in many of the most memorable of those films, shows up here in this film as the title character "Captain Clegg", a reformed pirate who still dabbles in a bit of wine smuggling and uses the profits to pay for his charities. It features a few moments that might be scary for very small children, but on the whole it is not a horror film. The horror elements come into play because Captain Clegg uses the ruse of marsh phantoms to scare people into staying away from his smuggling zones.The ostensible "hero" of the film is Captain Collier (Patrick Allen), but he's so brutal in his interrogation methods and so unflappable in putting the pursuit of his quarry above all other considerations, even moral ones, that by the end of the film he's almost a villain. Oliver Reed plays the romantic Harry Cobtree, the local magistrate's son who is in love with "common" working girl Imogene (Yvonne Romain). When it's revealed that Imogene is actually the daughter of Captain Clegg, it introduces a very interesting subtext because Clegg himself definitely approves of Harry as a prospective son-in-law and Clegg is obviously a sort of substitute father figure for Harry, whose natural father is a bloated hypocrite who seems to share very little with Harry in the way of temperament or talent. So the film starts out with a very shady group of people, particularly Mr. Rash (Martin Benson) the inn-keeper. Michael Ripper also puts in one of the most distinguished and notable performances I've seen from him, and he and Clegg make an interesting faux-couple as well. His devotion to Clegg certainly borders on the romantic although the film is not explicit with that subtext. But after starting out with such a rough group of rogues, it ends up creating a sort of family out of these 3 major characters.There's more to this film than might meet the eye. Although the production standards are questionable in some ways, all in all it's a decent looking movie and I thought some of the photography when they're wandering through the eerie swamps was very well done. There is no better person to hold down a film than Peter Cushing, and his fans will be pleased with this film as I was. He's got this crazy bobbed hairstyle too which is very neat. His performance surprised me because I thought maybe he was going to go all-out evil like he did in "Twins of Evil", but he becomes gradually more sympathetic as the film continues. One wishes that Hammer Films had the money to perhaps show more of the high-seas adventures from Clegg's earlier career, but that's not really the focus of the story anyway.A good story is made even better by an excellent group of actors, highlighted by the veteran Cushing and the exciting young Reed.

José Luis Rivera Mendoza (jluis1984) Hammer Films, the British studio famous for their horror films of the 50s and 60s, produced "Captain Clegg" based on Russell Thorndike's novel, "Doctor Syn: A Tale of the Romney Marsh". An atypical choice for Hammer, this swashbuckling melodrama had the bad luck of being produced the same year as Disney's version of another Dr. Syn novel ("The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh"), which forced Hammer to change the names of the characters to avoid legal issues. Disney's competition and the fact that it was not exactly a horror movie (despite being called "Night Creatures" in the U.S.) contributed to send the film to oblivion for several years. After being lost in limbo, "Captain Clegg" is finally available again, and now it's possible to see this wonderful lost treasure in all its glory.Set back in the 18th-century, the Royal Crown suspects that smuggling is being done near Dymchurch, so Captain Collier (Patrick Allen) and his crew to investigate. After they arrive, they learn of the legends of the ghosts of Romney Marsh and the curse of the pirate Captain Clegg, but Collier believes that it's all superstitions, and continues his investigations. Collier suspects that the kind village priest, the Reverend Dr. Blyss (Peter Cushing) knows more about the smuggling that what it seems and he'll do whatever is necessary to discover the truth. Even if that means to face the curse of Captain Clegg."Captain Clegg" is a wonderful and sadly forgotten film that mixes everything that made Hammer famous in the horror genre with the classic swashbuckling adventures of old. The amazing and beautiful sets and costumes, the cleverly written plots, and the brilliant performances of the cast combine to create a terrific and very enjoyable film. The fact that its director, Peter Graham Scott had a lot of experience with drama and ensemble casts definitely was a defining factor in the result, and while certainly different than most of other Hammer films, the movie retains that certain magic the Studio gave to everything it did.The film is a better adaptation to Russell Thorndike's novel than Disney's mainly in the fact that the screenplay (by John Temple-Smith) retains the character's anti-hero status, and plays with his dubious morality. Forecasting the renewal of cinema of the 60s, the film has not a definite good and evil, it's all gray scales and the very well constructed characters move from one side to the other in a very realistic manner. The film also makes an interesting point of how our past actions can affect us in the future. Like they did with the horror genre, Hammer modernizes the swashbuckling melodrama with great power and superb care.The acting is the film's strongest feature and basically every member of the cast is remarkably good. Hammer regular Peter Cushing gives one of his best performances ever and he seems to enjoy the whole movie. It's a joy to watch him in a more complex character than his usual heroic Van Helsing or his wickedly evil Victor Frankenstein. Oliver Reed is also present and his performance as young Harry Cobtree is quite effective. Along with Yvonne Romain they form the romance side of the film and both of them have great chemistry. Patrick Allen and Michael Ripper complete the cast with equally good performances as the script gives everyone a chance to shine.The film is near perfect and very enjoyable, as it delivers its mix of action, well-handled suspense and old school melodrama blends together smoothly delivering high doses of entertainment. However, some of its scenes at first sight seem definitely outdated (as always happen), later they become part of the film's charm and add to the fun of the story. It was near tragic that the film nearly got lost due to its legal problems and probably bad marketing, as while its American title and its Hammer pedigree suggest Horror, it's far from being in the genre which may turn off viewers expecting a scare-fest."Captain Clegg" is a very enjoyable film that modernizes swashbuckling films and gives the chance to watch a different side of Hammer and a wonderful performance by Peter Cushing. It's definitely a must-see and fans of period films filled with suspense and adventure will feel right at home here. A wonderful lost treasure that finally sees light again. 9/10