Sunday, October 09, 2005

Dr. Syn, Highwayman....Scarecrow

I saw this film on the Wonderful World of Disney. I don't remember much about it, except that freakin' scarecrow creeped me out.

6 comments:

Jimmy said...

Dr. Syn?? At first, I thought it was vintage porno, but nope, just Disney, ha.

Booksteve said...

THE SCARECROW OF ROMNEY MARSH aired in three parts several times on the TV show in the early sixties. My guess is that it was originally planned as a continuing series within the series a la' SWAMP FOX and ELFEGO BACA. My 8 year old son and I watched it recently and he was impressed by the Scraecrow mask and scared by the maniacal laugh. An edited (by nearly half) version appeared in theaters in the early seventies as DR SYN...ALIAS THE SCARECROW as in your book. The story was put on film two other times, with George Arliss in DOCTOR SYN and Peter Cushing in Hammer's NIGHT CREATURES.

Ubermilf said...

We had a 45 with the "Scarecrow" theme song on one side and "Trick or Treat for Halloween" on the other.

The Scarecrow song, as I remember, went:

"Scarecrow, Scarecrow... the soldiers of the king fear his name...Scarecrow... with a (foolish or fiendish?) grin..."

Chris Jart said...

Yeah I know, Dr. Syn does sound like questionable material for a child to see. Speaking of questionable, some day I'll have to post a photo of that drug promoting cartoon poster I won at a fair.

Booksteve has provided more info than I ever knew about the scarecrow.

And I'm happy that Ubermilf has mentioned the 45 as I was not aware that it existed and I love hearing about tv/movie related 45s!

Phillip said...

Hey, I had that book! Never saw the movie, though...

Anonymous said...

I loved this movie as a kid, and still do. Dr. Syn -- hunky vicar by day, cackling avenger of injustice by night. If all churchmen resembled the young Patrick McGoohan, you wouldn't have enough pews to go around.