WIth the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh Disney brings a European touch its weirdest production...

Walt Disney has always been a uniquely American company, almost to a fault. Recently, however, one of the companies most interesting properties, The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh was re-released on DVD. The production was part of the Wonderful World of Disney television series in 1964 and was also released at about the same time as a feature film in Europe.


The character of Dr Syn/Scarecrow was created by Russell Thorndyke and has a fascinating back story as the character was in his past an 18th century pirate named Captain Clegg and ends up a vicar in southern England who by night is a smuggler named The Scarecrow. There is an element of superhero split personality in this character as the vicar is a man of peace and The Scarecrow is an individual not only of action, but of terror.

The Scarecrow is a US production, but it has a real European flavor. It was filmed in and around the actual areas that Thorndyke set his tale and many of the performers were well-respected character actors familiar to UK audiences from their work on stage and screen.

Heading the cast was the very fine Patrick McGoohan who was recognizable from his work in the series Secret Agent Man (called Danger Man in Europe) was about to be launched into cult stardom for his landmark series The Prisoner. His performance here is very effective and the sense of a split personality is much more obvious than say the Bruce Wayne/Batman dynamic in the contemporary Batman films. When The Scarecrow doffs his very effective and frightening mask and in his place is an elegant man of the cloth the effect is jarring.

The odd and interesting thing about the film's history is that Disney's ownership of the property caused Hammer productions to alter the script for their own take on Thorndyke's story which was released as Night Creatures (also as Captain Clegg). The Dr. Syn character was played by Peter Cushing and was known as Dr. Bliss.


The DVD has both the US Television version and the European theatrical version as well as a nice documentary on the character's history with some nice, recent interview footage from McGoohan who looks well in his 70's.

There is no real explanation as to why Disney might be interested in this kind of story. The director, James Neilson, was a journeyman television director known for working in Westerns. This influence is seen in The Scarecrow galloping through the English countryside in the moonlight.



This DVD release has been anticipated for years by fans of the production and it is something of a surprise that the property has not been tapped for a remake. Perhaps this release will be the first step in this process.

Isable Hubbert's Madame Bovary staggers onto DVD...

Directed by the venerable French Filmmaker Claude Chabrol and starring the legendary French actress Isabella Huppert, 1991's version of Madame Bovary has just been released by Koch Lorber on DVD. The film got a fairly wide release in the US upon its release in the early 90's.



This version is very faithful to the novel (often thought to be impossible to film). Director Chabrol even filmed some of the film near Flaubert's home in Rouen with some of the dialogue lifted directly from the book. Chabrol is not known for doing period pieces which makes this an interesting exercise as Huppert gives a contemporary style performance. Unfortunately, Huppert's performance is the only one of note here, but in many ways it is enough.

Jean Claude Van-Damme: Oscar contender...

First it was Mickey Rourke, now the great Jean Claude Van Damme is taking a shot at not only a comeback but a kind of reassesment of his cinematic legacy. In the new JCVD, Van Damme plays Jean Claude Van Damme a nearly forgotten washed up has been with family money and career problems. Van Damme (or more accurately JCVD) returns to his native Belgium for a shot at redemption. Suffice to say there is some potential for old school JCVD heroics...



This film, a Belgium production is one of the most interesting films to hit the US this year. Within less than two hours, the whole idea of JCVD the cheesy action star and actor is upended and replaced by something grand and even moving. It is hard to remember an actor going this surprising of a bravura performance ever...The monologue that he delivers is riveting enough to get him an Oscar nom...I am not kidding.

Interview: Author Kavanaugh talks about Rudolph Nureyev the International Film Performer...

As a dancer, Rudolph Nureyev was one of the most electrifying performers of the 20th century. The paperback version of the fine 2007 biography Nureyev: The Life has just been released by Vintage. Nureyev traces the drama of the great Nureyev in his life and work. The work is also a reminder that Nureyev was an international, exotic screen personality and starred in one of the most sensational films of the 70's, the UK production of Valentino. Ms. Kavanaugh was kind enough to correspond with yours truly about Nureyev's limited, but fascinating screen work.

FSW: Is it really true that RN was up for the role of the snake in Huston's segment of The Bible?

JK: From what I was told this was a serious consideration. In addition, for his section of the film, Orson Welles had RN in mind as the Angel of God who wrestles with Jacob

FSW: Was there ever a moment when it was possible that RN could have a serious career as an actor? Did he have any real interest in this?

JK: Film was almost as much of a passion as dance for Nureyev. His London friends the Goslings used to rent films - usually the classics - and screen them on a projector in their house. RN directed the feature film of his ballet Don Quixote and impressed famous veterans like cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth by his profound knowledge of the art. There was a time in the midSeventies when he would have loved to have made an impact as a film actor, but unfortunately never found the right vehicle. Both Valentino and Exposed were disasters.


FSW: Do you think that if Nureyev had arrived on the film scene today (or at some other point) he would have been better utilized as a film presence? Did his potential as a film performer conflict with the style of 70's films?



JK: He was very badly directed by Ken Russell in Valentino (and his co-star Leslie Caron would agree). But the fact that he looks so superb and charismatic in the stills suggests that his main problem was having to speak the lines. He'd have been the most wonderful silent film star. Pauline Kael wrote in her New Yorker review, 'Seen up close...Nureyev has the seductive, moody insolence of an older, more cosmoplitan James Dean.'

Hitchcock's British Silent Film The Lodger highlights MGM's Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection...

Hitchcock's earliest film to survive intact (one he considered to be his "first" in his famous interviews with Truffaut) and a silent one to boot, The Lodger has just been released by MGM in the Alfred Hitchock Premier Collection. The film, probably Hitchcock's least well known masterpiece has some early indications of themes that Hitchcock explored over and over in his prolific career (like the appearance of guilt in an innocent man). This film holds up nicely as silent films go, as Hitchcock employed his usual brilliant, often wordless storytelling that he utilized in sequences in his sound work (like the wordless sequence on the playground in The Birds).
There is a particularly brilliant moment when the Lodger of the films name is pacing back and fourth upstairs and Hitchcock employs a glass floor to visually suggest the sound of the Lodger pacing.

The film includes audio commentary, interviews with Peter Bogdonavich and Truffaut as well as a "Making of" Featurette...