Captain Clegg's gang
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Captain Clegg's gang |
| Original title | Captain Clegg |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1962 |
| length | 82 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Peter Graham Scott |
| script | Anthony Hinds |
| production | John Temple-Smith |
| music | Don Banks |
| camera | Arthur Grant |
| cut | Eric Boyd-Perkins |
| occupation | |
| |
The Gang of Captain Clegg is a 1961 British adventure film with horror elements from the Hammer Films production . Peter Cushing plays the lead or title role, directed by Peter Graham Scott .
action
The story takes place in the late 18th century. Once (1776) a sailor, known as the “mulatto” because of his ethnicity, was abandoned on an island because he had or is supposed to have attacked the white wife of the brutal pirate captain Nathaniel Clegg. Clegg himself was a decidedly villainous contemporary at the time and was captured by the British Navy 16 years later, in 1792, and untied on royal orders. His remains rest in Dymchurch Cemetery, which is said to have been haunted since the gruesome events of yore. Night after night, so the Fama goes, mounted ghost riders would gallop through the march and bring fear and terror over the villagers.
The English captain Collier is assigned to investigate the rumor with his people that the inhabitants of the coastal town are busy smuggling alcohol with revolutionary France. As soon as they arrive, Collier's people hear about the fairy tale of the nocturnal “phantom riders” of the hanged Clegg. The “mulatto”, now the mute house slave of the English seaman, has been at Collier's side for years since the dark-skinned man's tongue was torn out after the alleged crime. The spiritual authority of the place is Pastor Dr. Arne Blyss, who on the one hand is affable and clueless, on the other hand is quite cooperative towards Captain Collier. During his search for the smugglers, Collier also enters the property of Mr. Rash and his lovely ward Imogene. An inconspicuous lager in the pub soon turns out to be much more, because the mulatto discovers a secret basement entrance there, which in turn connects a secret passage with the house of the coffin farmer Jeremiah Mipps. In truth, this is the alcohol smugglers' headquarters. When the mulatto met the “honorable” Dr. Blyss sees, he freaks out and for some inexplicable reason attacks the man of God. Collier's sailors struggle to drag the colored man away from Blyss.
The following night, the smugglers succeed in transporting an alcohol delivery unnoticed to the nearby windmill, from where it is to be transported by sea. However, Collier is on the heels of the smugglers, and an exchange of fire ensues in which Imogene's fiancé Harry is wounded in the arm. Meanwhile, the pub owner Rash kills one of Collier's people because he has apparently exposed Rash's connection with alcohol smuggling. The mulatto, in turn, who attacked Blyss because he had unequivocally recognized the supposedly dead Captain Clegg in him, went to the cemetery at Dymchurch and opened Clegg's grave. The grave is empty, as expected, and when the mulatto again Dr. Blyss attacks, Collier, who has made the search for Captain Clegg his life's work for years, becomes suspicious of Blyss.
Mr. Rash has appeared in the house of Blyss, who obviously does not know the double identity of the pastor and former pirate captain or today's gang leader either. There he searches for and finds Captain Clegg's will and learns that his ward Imogene is none other than Clegg's biological daughter. From now on he pushes the girl back. To make matters worse, Imogene also loses her fiancé to Collier, who unequivocally identifies him as one of the alcohol smugglers in the windmill campaign because of his gunshot wound on the arm, which could only have come from Collier. Harry is about to be taken to Collier's ship when the Phantom Riders from Clegg's gang appear and free him. These people are nothing more than the villagers who then take Harry with Imogene to the village church, where Pastor Blyss, aka Captain Clegg, trusts them.
When Captain Collier also appears in the church, he announces that the Clegg grave opened by the mulatto is empty. He tears the sacred chain from Blyss 'neck and reveals to the last ignorant person, based on the rope traces of a failed attempt to hang it on Blyss' neck, that the revered pastor is none other than the villainous pirate captain Clegg. Clegg briefly explains the circumstances of how he escaped death from the gallows. In the subsequent scuffle, Clegg and Mipps can escape through the secret passage. When they arrive at the other end of the coffin maker's basement room, the mulatto is already waiting for them there. He killed Mr. Rash shortly before and is now killing his old tormentor Cleggs with a spear right in the heart. Then he is struck down by Jeremiah Mipps with a pistol shot. In the final scene, Mipps buries Captain Clegg's body in the open grave in the cemetery.
Production notes
Captain Clegg's gang premiered in New York on June 13, 1962, with the UK premiere twelve days later. The German premiere took place on January 1, 1963.
Bernard Robinson created the film structures .
Reviews
“A cheaply produced adventure film from Hammer, loosened up with romantic accents and scary elements. Overall extremely weakly staged and inadequately played. "
The Movie & Video Guide thought the film was “good fun with some terrifying moments”.
Halliwell's Film Guide saw here a “mild remake by Dr. Syn with some added moments of violence. Worth seeing for those who like a totally predictable story ”.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The gang of Captain Clegg in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed on September 11, 2018
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 925
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 170
Web links
- The gang of Captain Clegg in the Internet Movie Database (English)