Moonfleet

I've said in conjunction with a number of movies that MGM had a lot of gloss that could be used to bring really high production values to a movie. After World War II and outside of the Freed Unit musicals, though, that competence left a lot of movies with something a little off. Another good example of this is Moonfleet.

Jon Whiteley plays John Mohune, an orphan in England in 1757. Apparently his family had come from wealth down in the village Moonfleet in Dorsetshire some generations back, so his mom left him with a letter to look up one man in Moonfleet, one Jeremy Fox (Stewart Granger). Moonfleet must have changed, however, since one of the things little John finds upon his arrival to the area is a man who's been hanged for smuggling.

John finds Jeremy at a tavern, and Jeremy is none too pleased to see the arrival of a Mohune. Apparently the people of Moonfleet disliked the Mohunes, who were powerful back in the day but rather cruel. The Mohunes also had something to do with Jeremy's being forced to leave Moonfleet and cross the Atlantic to live in the colonies for some time. Worse for little John is that Jeremy is the head of one of the gangs of smugglers!

Jeremy tries to senf John away, but John escapes from the coach that's taking him away and returns at just the wrong time, while Jeremy is entertaining some important people. The only one who realy takes pity on John is Jeremy's lady friend Mrs. Minton (Viveca Lindfors). As for Jeremy, he'd like to get into a privateering deal with local bigwig Lord Ashwood (George Sanders), but having to schlep this kid around would be a problem.

Meanwhile, everybody in Moonfleet is complaining about ghosts in the graveyard. The reason for that is that the old Mohune crypt under the church, extending out into the graveyard, is where the smugglers meet in secret. Johnny goes into the old family crypt, and finds a silver locket in an ancestor's coffin. What he doesn't know is that the locket contains a piece of paper that holds the clue to finding a large and valuable diamond. Eventually that piece of paper is found and Jeremy is able to put two and two together. But by this time the authorities are on to him.

It goes like this, and since the Production Code was still pretty strong, it's tough to figure out a way that Jeremy is going to get out of all of this without facing justice. And what's going to happen regarding his relationship with John, since everybody else is telling Jeremy to ditch the boy?

I think part of the problem is Moonfleet is that the script seems to go all over the place without really doing enough. The other problem is that the movie is unable to break away from the look of obviously being done on the backlot. Everybody is professional, and there's the kernel of a pretty entertaining movie hiding at the center of it all. But the potential is never reached.

Some boys who are into adventure stories will definitely enjoy Moonfleet, but there's also a lot of adventure that's been done better out there.