Lorna Doone (1951)

Strong and Moving!

How sad is this?

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

My main trepidation when tuning in to this costumer was that there would be California accents ringing all around Richard Greene and Merrie England...but no! Everyone from lovely Barbara Hale to the slew of Hollywood western veterans that surround her (including Ray Teal, Harry Lauter, and the always excellent Myron Healy) all come up with admirable mid-Atlantic intonations. Yes, the plot is old as the hills, and the production values are B+ rather than A. But the technicolor is great, and the drama and thrills are definitely there. This overlooked movie is pure comfort viewing for anyone who enjoys ridiculous historical adventures from 1950s Hollywood. Loved it.

The painful thing about this film is the grotesque distortion of the original novel. Unfortunately, this is what Hollywood used to do with great classics in the early 50s - there are numerous examples, like for instance Henry King's "King of the Khyber Rifles" with Tyrone Power, reducing him to a puppet and the story to shambles. Here at least the surroundings are true to the book - a recklessly romantic landscape with that stupendous waterfall as the centre of the stage, the music is also very well contrived, but all the rest is just common Hollywood artifice. They try to sugar it with some swashbuckling scenes, great sword fights, a royal intrigue (missing in the novel) and villains as wicked as possible. This was not worth seeing except for the colours, the settings, the romance (more for Barbara Hale than for Richard Greene) and the characters of Charles II and Ron Randell as Tom Faggus, the only fresh touch of humour in this depthless hollowness.

This fantasia on British peasant life during the time of King Charles II is fun for what it is, but it's more of the same, especially from the stable of swashbuckling historical epics coming out of the vault of producer Edward Small. The man who gave us various Counts of Monte Cristo and various men and women in iron masks now takes on the legend of the wealthy Doone family, a ruthless band of dukes who took a good majority of crops and livestock on the lands they leased as rent, and have ruthlessly pillaged the countryside. The narrative makes it clear that they were enemies of the monarchy, apparently trying to increase the amount of land they own in a presumed effort to take over the country. Young John Ridd witnesses his father being killed by the Doones, and climbs up a waterfall to a cave entering the Doone's private lands to plead for mercy. There he meets young Lorna and two other young male relatives whom it is obvious he will grow up to fight and try to bring down in adulthood. Years go by and the peasant life hasn't improved, only worsened. As the two younger members of the family become men, they strive to keep the peasants down even more, and Ridd (Greene) vows to bring them down, even as he falls more in love with the beautiful title character (Hale) who has a birth secret even she isn't aware of.While this was considered a B film, the colorful photography often tries to hide that fact, and what comes out of this is a pleasant historical action film that while not quite "Ivanhoe" or "Knights of the Round Table" is compact and possibly even more entertaining. Greene and his band of men strive to take down the Doones' army and eventually plead with King Charles II (Lester Matthews) for aide. Charles, one of the most noble of kings, hears him out, and this leads to a union between Greene and Hale which sends the remaining Doones on a course of revenge that ends up with the two old rivals battling Greene, leading back to the entrance to the waterfall cave and a final battle that is riveting and suspenseful. Not a great film by any means, it's a pleasant time filler, and a good opportunity to see the lovely Hale long before she became Della Street and the Amana spokeswoman. Greene gets to show off his fine physique, bronzed by the colorful cinematography. Carl Benton Reid gives a wise, sensitive performance as the older Doone, betrayed by his own family, and William Bishop and Onslow Stevens make delightfully hissable villains. There are other versions of this story out there that might give truer portrayals, but this one is interesting from the viewpoint that it takes.

I say it's a great story, but like so many great stories (Lord of the Rings, for example) it would never get published today. In truth; it's the plot that's really great: Blackmore's telling of it is the the most long-winded lump of verbosity I've ever encountered.Cut to the chase. Here we have the story told in a fairly minimalist though typical way of the time. It would run for at least another 30 minutes if brought to the big screen today. British telly-hunk Richard Greene plays the spirited yeoman John Ridd besotted by his darling Lorna. Unfortunately, She is of the dreaded Doone clan, a hell-raising ruthless family who have used their position of landed status to impose a reign of terror on the countryside that is their titled dominion.A juvenile Ridd first encounters his girlish desire after scaling the supposedly unclimbable waterfall to the Doone lair. It is love at first sight. A young man about his own age, aptly called Carver, and destined to be heir to the Doone estate has similar sexual ambitions, and you can see what's coming. The Doone fortress is practically unassailable. But there's an Achille's heel: the waterfall...I saw this movie ages ago when I was a kid and enjoyed it immensely. A particular exchange stuck in my memory. Young Ridd is discovered where he shouldn't be by the Doone clan and threatened by Carver. But the old patriarch restrains his impetuous heir-apparent and invites Ridd to visit them by more conventional means. It goes something like this:Patriarch:'You must come back and see us when you are tall enough to cast a shadow on our door.' Carver: 'Aye; come back then and cast your shadow if you dare.' Ridd: That I shall, Carver, And I hope you're standing before me.'That's not word-perfect, but it was good, portentous stuff like it. If the rest of the script was no worse, I think it would still be fun.Another commentator has posted a rather disappointing critique and his memory may be better (or fresher) than mine. But if it was no worse that ITV's similarly-vintaged 'Adventures of Robin Hood' also starring Mr Greene then I'd still be willing to give it a go. After all; you can't blame the actors if the sword-fighting was poorly choreographed.Any who visit 'Doone Valley' in the south-west of England will find the landscape far less dramatic than depicted in story or movie.