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12 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :- Through a child's eyes ,darkly., 27 August 2005 Author: dbdumonteil
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
A movie which is highly praised by French critics.The first thing to bear is mind is that it's based on Falkner's novel.It's not "Falkner's novel transferred to the screen".People who read the book might be disappointed.Jeremy Fox was created from start to finish by the script writers.We can wonder why it roughly replaces Elzevir Block (who's featured in the movie but in a minor role).Part of the reason can be found,I think,in Lang's work.In the book ,Block was a very good man ,and Lang's characters had always been very ambiguous .Is Fox the boy's friend?I have my doubts .He always betrays him and when he finally sides with him,it is beyond death.The boy's waiting (final scene) is a metaphor for the fear of losing childhood's illusions.But Jeremy epitomizes an already lost fight.The end of the novel(which ends when the child is an adult ,cause it spreads its plot over ten years )paraphrases the proverb "ill gotten ill spent" .John the man has sailed the sea and like Ulysses has returned to live peacefully. One can easily understand what was appealing in Falkner's "Moonfleet" for a director like Lang.The underground world,the characters who lead a double life,the secret places , any Lang fan already met them ("Metropolis" "M","secret beyond the door" "hangmen also die"...) and would later ("beyond a reasonable doubt","der tiger von Eschnapur" "das indische Grabmal").The atmosphere of the novel fitted him like a glove but the characters probably did not.However,Lord and Lady Ashwood characters (not featured in the novel too)get in the way:George Sanders delivers a funny line ("the boy would be my grandson" ) but their presence adds nothing to the plot.And Meade's characters (Ratsey,Maskew,Grace,Block) are too often sacrificed to the "new " ones.Okay they were a bit cardboard ,but they were colorful.Unlike some other users,I think that the color is dazzling.There's something circular in the directing: Liliane Montevecchi's dance,,the creek,the sinister-looking smugglers' faces surrounding the boy,the well..I think that Lang's intention was to show his story through the boy's eyes.That's probably why the scenes dealing with the aristocrats do not work.That was Lang's first attempt at an adventures movie.He would continue (IMHO,with better results) in the two German movies "der Tiger..." and "das Indische..." ,but even when he made apparently "entertaining" flicks,we could feel his inimitable touch.
7 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :- On the Boundary between Gothic Horror and Swashbuckling Adventure, 24 February 2006 Author: James Hitchcock from Tunbridge Wells, England
It is a long time since I read J Meade Falkner's novel, but I remember enough of it to realise that this film bears little resemblance to it. Around the middle of the eighteenth century John Mohune, the young son of a once-wealthy but now ruined aristocratic family, is sent after the death of his parents to stay with Jeremy Fox, the squire of the Dorset village of Moonfleet. Before her marriage to a cousin, Fox was the lover of John's mother, but they were prevented from marrying by the opposition of her family, who thought he was neither wealthy nor well-born enough for her. As the fortunes of the Mohunes have declined, however, so those of Fox have risen, and he is now the wealthiest man in the village, living in their ancestral mansion.Fox takes a liking to the boy, and a friendship grows up between them. Unknown to John, however, Fox is not the respectable country gentleman he appears. His main source of wealth is his involvement in the lucrative, but highly illegal, smuggling trade, and he has plans to go into partnership with Lord Ashwood, a local nobleman, in a venture which involves plundering foreign ships and which effectively falls little short of piracy. The debonair Fox is also something of a ladies man, with at least two mistresses, one of whom denounces him to the authorities when he tires of her. The main plot concerns Fox and John's search for a long-lost diamond which had once belonged to one of the Mohune family."Moonfleet" has similarities to "Treasure Island" although it is set in Britain rather than on a remote tropical island. The relationship between the likable rogue Fox (a name presumably chosen because of its connotations of cunning) and young John parallels that between Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins. The film has been aptly described as situated on the boundary between a traditional cape and sword adventure and a Gothic horror movie. The style of acting is more that of the swashbuckling adventure. Stewart Granger, taking over where Errol Flynn left off, made something of a speciality of dashing heroes in historical costume dramas ("Blanche Fury", "Saraband for Dead Lovers", "Scaramouche" and "Beau Brummell" are other examples) and he makes an attractive hero here. The other contribution that stands out is from George Sanders, always a good villain, as the corrupt aristocrat Ashwood.Director Fritz Lang, however, brings a very Gothic look to the film. Moonfleet may be situated on one of the most scenic counties in England, but it is no picturesque village. The atmosphere is often a dark, gloomy one, with numerous shots of the shabby alehouse or the mist-shrouded churchyard. Fox may be a likable rogue, but the smugglers are for the most part dangerous ones who would have no compunction about murdering a child. (There is a fine duel between Fox and one of their number fought to decide whether John should live or die after he inadvertently overhears their plans). This is not a great film, but is nevertheless a well-made, watchable adventure. 6/10
8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :- Good old-fashioned adventure, Granger at his best (bar scaramouche), pleasant pathos, 6 August 2006 Author: rochvelleth from Cambridge
Moonfleet was great. I like the premise - boy is sent to find man (after his dying mother promises the man will look after him). Turns out man was in love with boy's mother, and when he couldn't have her spent his life not really loving anyone but having lots of women anyway. Man manages not to be too friendly to the boy at first.Also turns out man is the ringleader of a gang of smugglers. And boy's ancestor had this famous diamond that Redbeard (local ghost of the village of Moonfleet) is meant to be looking for.You can probably guess the rest of the plot. But I shan't give it away, because honestly, you should all go watch it.What I loved about it, apart from the derring-do (fights, dressing up as soldiers, sneaking about in the countryside, smuggling) and the wonderfulness of Stewart Granger (looks, voice, a real hero persona), was the really touching bits.OK, I'm about to spoil the ending now. DON'T keep reading if you haven't already seen it.Man ends up saving the boy's life a couple of times, but still insists he'll leave him behind and go off to his new life of crooked prosperity once he's helped him to find the diamond. They find the diamond, and indeed he leaves him behind (leaving him a note while he's asleep). Just as he's going off to the new life of crooked prosperity, however, he has a change of heart and goes back for the boy. But another guy stabs him in the back, and he's mortally wounded. He goes back to where the boy is still sleeping, takes the note away, and then wakes him up, gives him the diamond, tells him to stay in Moonfleet, doesn't reveal he's dying and promises to come back someday before rowing off into the night. And it was *so darn sad*. I wasn't expecting to cry, but I did - very pathetic, perfect catharsis.I love a film that leaves you still thinking about the ending for a while.
10 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :- MGM Movie That Is Not As Good As It Could Have Been, 17 March 2005 Author: gerrythree (gerrytwo@hotmail.com) from New York
I like the movie Moonfleet, but in watching Moonfleet, you are also watching the demise of a great studio, still trying to turn out quality pictures as the Hollywood studio system is collapsing and movie budgets are shrinking. Moonfleet is only 87 minutes long, there are no expensive exterior action scenes and dimly lit interior scenes are the norm. Even though shot in Cinemascope, Moonfleet is a budget movie using cheaper Eastmancolor, not Technicolor. Stewart Granger was still under contract, and the other starring roles are handled by European actors, who worked for less. MGM modified existing sets, cleaned off old costumes and started the camera rolling. For all of that, the picture is interesting as it deals with 18th century English smugglers and the story of young John Mohune. MGM executives must have decided that even with Fritz Lang, Moonfleet was not going to be a hit, which could explain the truncated story line and the always gloomy (cheaply processed) photography. On the TCM broadcast I saw, Moonfleet was in widescreen and had closed captioning. Looking as good as it ever will until the movie has a full restoration, Moonfleet is just too slow paced, without real kinetic energy. The talent is there, but probably for reduced budget reasons, Moonfleet can't grab your attention and keep it for even 87 minutes.Addendum: I just watched parts of Moonfleet again, from a download of a bittorrent file made from the French Time Warner DVD of this movie (An AOL Company was still part of the logo then, only two years ago). In a lot of ways, this movie is a reflection of the decline of Hollywood and the importance of movie studios in general. Director Fritz Lang worked for the UFA movie studios in the 20s making silents, made talkies in the 30s first in Europe then in Hollywood, and was running out the string in Hollywood when he made Moonfleet. At the end of the movie, when young Mohune leaves open the gate of Mohune manor, the gesture does not really change things. The MGM logo included a gate in it, the entrance to a great movie studio. There is a silent 1926 documentary made by MGM showing the different departments in the dream factory, from warehouses full of period furniture to group shots of directors and cameramen and even a garage where wind machines and power trucks were kept. MGM was a giant movie company from the start when it combined Goldwyn's studio with Metro. Less than 30 years after that silent, the MGM studio was like the desolate Mohune family manor, its contract players and staff released, its Loew's theaters sold on the cheap, its Hollywood studio barely holding on as its New York board of directors decided to fire production head Dore Schary and cut movie production, placing the studio's survival on big pictures like Raintree County, Ben-Hur and How The West Was Won.Moonfleet is still with us, but MGM is now completely gone, its name tagged onto a film releasing company but the last of its small studio staff given their walking papers about two years ago. The fatalistic atmosphere that permeates many scenes in Moonfleet may be Fritz Lang's doing, but it could just as well be that it was hard for MGM staffers to think about happy endings as their studio was going under. And MGM's decline mirrored what was happening in the rest of Hollywood.Under the conditions then, it was an accomplishment for the studio to make Moonfleet, hiring the talent not on payroll, preparing the sound stages for production and shooting the movie using the cheap Eastmancolor film. But to me, the picture is too much of a downer, the photography too dim and the storyline incomplete. Moonfleet is worth watching, it has a great cast but the movie needed a bigger budget to pay for better production values and scenes showing what Stewart Granger's character did after leaving Mohune manor. By 1954, MGM wasn't going to gamble on spending a lot of money on Moonfleet.
8 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :- An enjoyable adventure, 7 April 2004 Author: Chris Gaskin from Derby, England
I just watched Moonfleet for the first time and enjoyed it. I taped it one afternoon from the TV as it is not available on video.A young boy is sent to the town of Moonfleet by his dying mother to be looked after by an old flame of hers. While there, he gets into all sorts of adventures and dangers including smuggling, grave robbing and treasure. The cast includes a good performance by Stewart Granger and is joined by George Sanders, Joan Greenwood, John Hoyt and young Jon Whiteley.I read in one review that this move is family viewing but I thought some of the scenes in it including the dead man hanging from a pole at the beginning may be a little too scary for younger children.An excellent movie. Rating: 3 and a half stars out of 5.
9 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :- Superb!, 11 April 2001 Author: artzau from Sacramento, CA
In the 50s, the great Errol Flynn was getting long in the tooth and Stewart Granger, tall, suave and incredibly "cool," by today's standards, was filling the role of the dashing adventurer in those halcyon days of moviedom before TV gutted the industry. This film directed by the venerable Fritz Lang is an immensely entertaining adventure with pirates, villains and intrigue all handled with dash and aplomb by Stewart Granger. Alas, no video but watch for it on the late night show and, as another reviewer has suggested, tape it for seeing again and again.
3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :- They dishonoured you sir., 1 October 2008 Author: JohnRouseMerriottChard from United Kingdom
Two hundred years ago the great heath of Dorsetshire ran wild and bleak down to the sea. Here in the hidden caves and lonely villages, the smuggling bands plied their trades. And here, one October evening of the year 1757, a small boy came in search of a man whom he believed to be his friend.This is the opening salvo for the MGM adaptation of J. Meade Falkner's novel of the same name. Miklós Rózsa's brilliant score then tones down to let us read and saviour, and from here on in we are hooked into this booming colourful adventure. Fans of the novel have no time for this picture, so if you have read the book and not seen the film then perhaps you best avoid it. Likewise those who are in to swashbuckling as a preferred genre, do not be lulled into the belief that because Stewart Granger is the lead character of Jeremy Fox here, that this is Scaramouche 2, because it has plenty of swash but not enough buckle for those of that persuasion.Filmed in Cinemascope, Moonfleet is a hugely enjoyable adventure that encompasses smugglers, rapscallions, wonderfully costumed soldiers, and crucially a bond between a man and his newly adopted son. The sets and Oceanside location are excellent, and the costumes from Walter Plunkett benefit greatly from the "coulourscope" filming. There are plot holes to thrust your épée or foils thru, and goofs that have no place in a tidy production such as this, but if a keg of smuggled brandy and a search for a hidden diamond has you interested?, well this will deliver without a shadow of a doubt. George Sanders, Joan Greenwood and young Jon Whiteley join Granger in delighting to the end of this enjoyable piece. Fritz Lang directs and fuses Gothic traits with bravado adventure leanings and the results are very easy on the eye, go on, have a look see. 7/10 Hurrah!.
6 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :- Solid and enjoyable adventure suitable and accessible for family viewing, 2 April 2006 Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK
Young John Mohune comes to Dorset to meet a man called Jeremy Fox who he believes was a friend of his late mother and will help look after him. Expecting a friend in Fox, John is upset to find an uncaring man who has no interest in John. He persists though in trying to gain the friendship and attention of Fox even in the face of great dissuasion. All Fox's acquaintances are rather desperate men, which fly in the face of his rather "proper" appearance. John doesn't suspect anything, being a child, but the area is famous for smugglers and Fox may be connected and perhaps be more dangerous than anyone realises – not least the innocent John Mohune.I watched this film simply because I was a bit taken aback by the fact that it was a Fritz Lang film. Not being a name I would have associated with a period film I decided to take a look and see what he did with it. In fairness Falkner's source material does give him something to work with and there are interesting themes and ideas running through it. It takes a little bit to get going but after a while the smuggling story and the relationships make for a good adventure that is brisk enough for children while also having a bit of meat for the adults. I quite enjoyed the sweeping adventure feel it had but I was more interested in the character of Fox, who is never a "good man" and is all the better for it (in terms of the narrative). Lang appears to be interested in this as well, and he does make Fox the biggest part of the film.Granger rises to this by turning in a solid performance where he is a rough character but not to the point where he loses the audience. The problem with the film is not with him – unfortunately it is with Jon Whiteley. He is too cute and very much a child actor – and I don't mean that in a good way. He isn't really able to emote and, apologies for the lack of intelligent criticism, but he just got on my nerves. I'm sure this film didn't want to go too deep but I would be happy to see a remake of this with a stronger and more natural child actor in the role, that may allow the relationship to be developed a bit further. Sanders is always a welcome presence but he is given very little to do. The rest of the support cast are all solid enough but the film is pretty much Granger's and he works it well even if Whiteley isn't up to much.Overall though this is a solid little adventure tale that makes for solid family viewing. It is brisk and swashbuckling enough to entertain children while the solid yarn will engage adults. The cast mostly give a good account of themselves and, while I didn't hate him, I must admit that Whiteley was annoying to me personally and his performance here suggested a good education but a limited ability.
9 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :- Read the novel instead., 7 June 2003 Author: bigdinosaur from Wyoming
Having read the earlier reviews of this movie, I do agree, in part, with some of them. But would like to give my two cents anyway.This movie was based on a quite good 1898 novel by John Meade Falkner. Unfortunately Hollywood thought they could improve on the story line---with bad results (why am I not surprised).Where did they ever come up with the name Jeremy Fox to replace Elzevir Block? And why did they make the boy so young? Not to mention the many other plot deviations (i.e. devious woman) which detracted from the tale. This could have been another 'Treasure Island' had the producers been a little less prone to taking liberties with literature.Now this movie is still very watchable mind you. And Granger is not too bad in his role. But if you want an idea of what the movie could have been, read the book!
1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :- Portrayal Of Innocence, 7 July 2009 Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York
Although Treasure Island and Moonfleet are set at the same time in Hanoverian Great Britain with a child protagonist, no two stories could be more different. Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island by becoming custodian of a treasure map with the help of some friendly adult companions battles pirates to gain the treasure and has a great old adventure out of it.Young John Mohune played by Jon Whiteley is an orphan lad alone in the world who is sent by his dying mother to seek out a man named Jeremy Fox in the coastal town of Moonfleet for protection and guidance against the cruel world. Fox is played by Stewart Granger who is in one of his least heroic roles on the screen. Granger is the Long John Silver of the story, the leader of a band of pirate smugglers who operate out of that town. Granger gets plenty of protection because he's got the local squire George Sanders and his pleasure driven wife Joan Greenwood on his payroll so to speak. But that's an alliance of convenience.Having young Whiteley dropped on him is certainly cramping his style, but the innocent young man in his explorations has found what could be clues to a big Hope Diamond like diamond that was the foundation of his family fortune, but has been lost for generations. Naturally everybody wants a piece of what that bauble will bring.Fritz Lang returns to a familiar theme of a doomed man who cannot escape what the fates have in store. It's a theme Lang's used over and over in such films as You Only Live Once, Scarlett Street, The Woman In The Window, Human Desire, and others. His best work however in this film is reserved for young Jon Whiteley. I've rarely seen pure innocence better portrayed on the screen than with Whiteley. The young man's scenes with Stewart Granger are some of that actor's best work as well.In fact Stewart Granger was often quoted as saying that he regarded Moonfleet as one of his best films. I think Granger was absolutely right. The film hasn't aged one iota since its release in 1955, it's still great viewing for people of all ages.
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