Captain Clegg
Director: Peter Graham Scott
Year: 1962
Rating: 7.0
Aka - Night Creatures
An intriguing Hammer production that is
hard to categorize. It has elements of horror, drama, suspense, adventure
and beneath it a layer of humanity. It begins with two terrific scenes that
set the mood of the film. A very large shaven headed man (Milton Reid - Terror
of the Tongs, The Camp on Blood Island) is condemned by the pirate Captain
Clegg to have his tongue cut out and left tied up on a deserted island. He
had attacked the Captain's wife. As things turn out much later, this was
too merciful. The Captain is not seen. The image of the condemned man is
memorable tied to a tree screaming without a tongue and a placard nailed
to the tree saying, "This is what happens to anyone who betrays Captain Clegg".
The next scene takes place years later with
a man crossing the marshlands at night with fog and bogs when phantom like
creatures on top of horses that seem to float through the air chase after
him until he missteps and sinks in a bog. The next day is Sunday and the
town gathers in the local church where the Reverand Blyss is leading his
congregation in a singing of the psalms with a few amusing asides. Clearly,
he is loved by the people. In the churchyard is a gravestone that as the
camera closes in has the date of the death of Captain Clegg. Hung by the
authorities. Since the Reverand is played by Peter Cushing in a wonderfully
measured performance, you don't have to be a genius to figure out that he
must be Clegg since that is the title of the film. Somehow, he fooled the
hangman and has settled in a small village and taken up God.
Well, yes and no. He has done what he can
to better people's lives. Through smuggling wine, whiskey and rum from France
and avoiding the excise men. And the whole town is in on it. All is going
well until a group of excise men show up having been told by an informer
- the man in the marshes - that smuggling was going on. They have with them
as almost a bloodhound a man with no tongue.
It becomes a series of the townsfolk - led
by Michael Ripper and Oliver Reed - fooling the excise men and hiding the
ill-gotten goods. It could have played as a comedy but it clearly doesn't.
Very well directed by Peter Graham Scott, who basically only did TV before
and after this film. At 82-minutes it flows quickly and keeps your attention.
Yvonne Romain makes a lovely Hammer girl as the barmaid in love with Reed.
