The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh
This was another of my youthful favorites. Disney recently released it on DVD, a fact I missed. Woe is me. It was a short run and now ungodly amounts are being asked of the two disc set. It starred the late Patrick McGoohan in the title role.
One disc has the three episode set as it was originally made, with introductions by Walt Disney himself. These were done in 1963. The second disc is an edited version released in theaters in Europe in 1964 under the title Doctor Syn, Alias The Scarecrow.
The version I came across seems to be the theatrical release. I only hope Disney does another print run sometime soon, though it doesn’t seem likely.
All are based on the character Dr. Christopher Syn, hero of a series of novels by Russell Thorndike begun in 1915 with Doctor Syn: A Tale of The Romney Marsh. The stories went on for seven novels up through 1944.
In 1960, William Buchanan, an American, wrote a novel titled Christopher Syn, basically a reworked Further Adventures of Doctor Syn, fourth book in the Thorndike series with a different ending and a combination/renaming of some of the supporting characters. This book became the basis of the Disney production, though there was a novelization of the theatrical version by Vic Crume as well.
Doctor Syn is a smuggler, bringing in goods from France at night to avoid the King’s excise tax. He disguises himself as the Scarecrow, a masked figure wearing tattered clothes and with an insane laugh. Set in the 1700s before American independence, he’s a sort of latter-day Robin Hood, doing it to help the people of the marsh lands survive and pay their taxes. He has a band of men, though his identity and those of his two lieutenants is unknown.
Doctor Christopher Syn is the Vicar of Dymchurch-under-the-wall, a quiet scholarly man who tends to the church members as best he can, a law-abiding man who would never dream of breaking the King’s laws.
I’ve read the first novel, a reprint some years back. Some copies of the series command fairly high prices, other more recent are more cost effective. The Crume novelization seens fairly cheap on the used book sites.
As I said earlier, I loved this one on my youth and it holds up well from a more adult perspective.
A small taste:
The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh looks interesting. I hope Patrick McGoohan knew how much he was appreciated. I’m watching episodes of The Prisoner and Danger Man online and he was such a damn good actor.
I actually have seen either parts of this before, or I’ve seen this trailer. Looks kind of interesting.
David, I’ve not seen any of the Danger Man episodes. I watched it back during the day on American television when it had become Secret Agent.
After The Prisoner, my favorites of his many roles were the numerous Columbo appearances. Falk and he seemed to have a chemistry that elevated the shows even above the excellent scripts.
Charles, David, if you can find it, it’s excellent adventure.