Through the miracle of YouTube, I have now watched all of the three film adaptations of Russell Thorndike’s Doctor Syn novels, while through the magic of Kindle I’ve read all the novels except for The Courageous Exploits of Doctor Syn, which isn’t yet available in a digital edition. What follows is a guide, from one viewer/reader to another, to this interesting, sometimes exciting, sometimes aggravating adventure series about a vicar in a small town on the Kentish coast who is secretly a former pirate captain, and who runs an efficient – often ruthless – smuggling operation, riding by night in the costume of a ghostly scarecrow.
The author, Russell Thorndike, was an accomplished actor (Dame Sybil Thorndike was his sister, and you can still see him in small parts in several of Laurence Olivier’s Shakespearean movies) but his great love was writing. He authored a one-off novel about smugglers called Doctor Syn: A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh in 1915, and was surprised to find its central character become far more popular than he’d ever anticipated.
The first film version of any of the books was a 1937 English production starring the actor George Arliss in his final role. This one was called Doctor Syn and was based on Thorndike’s novel of the same name. Arliss was about 70 when he played this role, which is too old for the part, and he functions more as a mastermind than an adventurer here. Continue reading A disquisition on Syn →