Les pirates de la nuit

Writer/producer/director John Gilling's story is set in 17th-century Cornwall when fishermen were hit by heavy taxes and turned to smuggling in order to supplement their income. Here, the village squire Trevenyan (Peter Cushing) puts together an army in order to wipe out smuggling from his community. However, the town is terrorised by a group of cut-throats lead by Black John (Bernard Lee) who force ships to land at Smugglers Bay and then ruthlessly murders their crews for the sake of their cargo. Unfortunately, Black John has a hold over Trevenyan and as a result, poor fisherman Francois Lejeune (George Coulouris) is charged for the shipwrecking as well as the smuggling he has done and is to be deported to a foreign colony. The squire's son Christopher (John Fraser) is in love with Lejeune's daughter Louise (Michele Mercier) and teams up with local highwayman known simply as the Captain (William Franklyn) in order to run Black John out of town and to prevent Lejeune's deportation.

All in all, FURY AT SMUGGLERS' BAY, is well enough done and entertaining enough while its on. I mean who could resist a film with such interesting credits. Bernard Lee as Black John who was soon to become famous as "M" in the Bond series, Peter Cushing as Squire Trevenyan and William Franklyn as the Captain. In addition, there's one of Britain's best known cameramen Harry Waxman behind the camera and John Gilling (an interesting British director who made such classics as THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES and THE VOICE OF MERRILL) is on hand to direct. Yet somehow after one's seen the film, the next morning there's nothing to remember.

While far from perfect, this is one of those films that's good for a hanging around kind of day, where you need something to fill the time.

It was also nice to see Peter Cushing play someone other than Dr. Van Helsing and battling smugglers rather than vampires. Though he could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he had confessed his secret, rather than submit to blackmail. (It's funny, how back then - 18thc - it would have been a real scandal, whereas today no one would blink an eye. But is that really progress?)

It's not a bad drama/adventure film, (with some romance thrown in), as long as you don't expect too much.

There's something foreboding, yet striking, of the image of cliffs, heavy tides, foaming water, ships on vehement waves, and winding roads; you get that in abundance in this tale of skullduggery in a Cornwall village. You also get swordfights and highwaymen robbing coaches. Shootouts. You get the picture.

The story -The squire of a small Cornish community has always turned a blind eye to smuggling, until wreckers turn up in the area to lure ships onto the rocks and steal their cargo. Knowing some villagers are handling stolen goods, he comes down hard on wreckers and smugglers alike, enlisting the military to deal with the problem - but the villagers rebel, and turn to an infamous highwayman to defend them.

Like Peter Cushing said in his biography, this film is like a western, with plenty of shootouts, and riding. It's a rumbustious yarn, which is a bit ponderous at times, but the locations, the action and the acting - especially by Peter Cushing and Bernard Lee - enliven things. The heroes - John Fraser and William Franklyn - put in the physical work adeptly with sword and gun. Michele Mercier and Liz Fraser offer eye candy. A pleasant enough viewing on a Sunday afternoon.

The title tells all in this second-rate but enjoyable adventure on a popular subject; star Peter Cushing gives it his all, as ever, and he's matched by a larger-than-life performance by Bernard Lee as the chief villain. Still, Cushing's previous collaboration with writer/director Gilling – THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS (1959) – had proved a lot more substantial (despite being shot in black-and-white).

Anyway, the remaining cast includes veteran George Coulouris, playing a French merchant convicted by squire Cushing as a wrecker, while John Fraser (in the role of the latter's son) and Michele Mercier (as the Frenchman's daughter) comprise the requisite love interest. Other notable characters to figure in the plot are a mysterious highwayman known only as "The Captain" and a young boy who goes by the name of Juma (also the name of the actor!), both of whom start off by being in cahoots with Lee and his gang but gradually change loyalties to emerge heroic by the film's conclusion. The widescreen print I watched (culled from the Region 2 DVD) displays some color fading but is otherwise pretty decent.

In the end, when compared to the similar but superior CAPTAIN CLEGG (1962; with Peter Cushing in the title role) – which being a Hammer production is, unsurprisingly, a more horror-oriented venture – this is unassuming family fare; two more films in the same vein I'd love to catch up with (both, incidentally, Hammer titles co-starring Christopher Lee) but which have never turned up in my neck of the woods are PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER (1962; also directed by Gilling) and THE DEVIL-SHIP PIRATES (1964)...

Despite the presence of John Gilling as director and Peter Cushing as the main lead, this is not a Hammer film. If you check the production companies, you will notice something very strange.... A very independant movie which looks like - maybe because it is precisely the case - a very good film, splendidly made as were also the other British films showing cloak and sword plots, and made during this early sixties and late fifties period; for instance PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER or HELLFIRE CLUB. Superb settings, photography, production design. This movie proves that John Gilling is a director who deserves to be discovered again, he not only shone in horror films, but also thrillers and here as a very efficient adventure - cloak and sword - film maker. Maybe not the Fritz Lang's MOONFLEET, but still quite effective.