Based on the novel by Russell Thorndike this is a good film set in the village of Dymchurch where a group of sailors led by Captain Howard Collyer R.N. arrrive to look for smugglers. It is the village where the once notorious Captain Clegg was buried and where on the salt marshes strange phantom riders have been seen. The titular Doctor Syn is the local vicar who watches over and helps his flock. The director Roy William Neill keeps a firm hand on the narrative and incident follows incident at a lively pace with amusing and interesting dialogue.In his last film elderly George Arliss plays Dr. Syn and is OK. Margaret Lockwood and John Loder don't have much to do. Fortunately there are great character actors in support; Roy Emerton, Graham Moffatt, George Merritt, Wally Patch and Muriel George. Meinhart Maur mimes and moans as a mulatto. There is a character called Dr. Pepper but I don't think that was an early example of product placement.The version I saw had poor picture quality which was a shame as some shooting was done on location but it was difficult to see. Roy William Neill went on to direct many Rathbone/Bruce Sherlock Holmes films, some of which were excellent.

Due to a tight script, fine direction, a rapid pace, and Arliss' final performance as Dr. Syn, this is a winner in every direction.Light comedy, action, suspense, drama, all coalesce in this initial adaptation of Russell Thorndike's action novel.I just came from watching the excruciatingly dull three part Disney adaptation of a number of the novels under the title THE SCARECROW OF ROMNEY MARSH.Arliss' film is superior to the Disney in every way.Highly recommended. That's all I have to say, but the review guidelines require ten lines, so I am filling them up.

As has already been pointed out Arliss was pushing 70 when he made this film and he is about 20 years too old to realistically play this role.It was also the penultimate year of Gaumont British as a viable production company.In 1936 they made 12 films,in 1937 when this film was made,8 and the following and last year 2.The company would close down Lime Grove studios and become involved in the financial disaster that happened in 1938.There was even a Board of Trade inquiry which was inconclusive.As a result Rank purchased the assets and that was the end of Gaumont British.This film creaks along.In fact the makers seemed to forget one little fact.Clegg had not been ordained as a preacher,merely swapped identities with the original preacher.So at the end he conducts the marriage of Loder and Lockwood,but of course they aren't in the circumstances legally married.Rather a better film is "Ask a Policeman" the Will Hay comedy based on smuggling.

Most people are acquainted with the story of Captain Clegg and Dr. Syn from the Walt Disney series with Patrick McGoohan entitled, THE SCARECROW OF ROMNEY MARSH. Basically it is about an area of the coast of 18th Century England which is a haven for successful smuggling. The British government is seeking to stop this, and they keep failing to catch the leader and his followers. The reason is that the leader (McGoohan in the Walt Disney series, and George Arliss here) is not such a bad guy, and the laws being enforced are ruinous and unjust to the local populace.This version was Arliss' final film, and it is amazing to me that this movie and DISRAELI are the only two Arliss performances that are on video (I'm not sure if they are on DVD). Like DISRAELI it is a period piece, but his Dr. Syn is not a real historical figure. Still he keeps to most of Arliss's normal role characteristics. Syn is actually the ex-pirate Captain Clegg, who was supposed to have been hanged for piracy a decade earlier at Dymchurch. Clegg and his crew settled in the area, continuing careers as smugglers. But the smuggling laws are broken here because of the unfair effect on the population (they raise revenues for a tyrannical government, and don't take local expenses into consideration). The government sends a leading pirate hunter (Roy Emerton) to the area with a mulatto (Meinhart Maur) who knows what Clegg looks like. Maur was mutilated and abandoned on an island by Clegg years before. What we don't learn until later is that the mulatto had attacked Clegg's wife and daughter (the attack must have shortened Mrs. Clegg's life), so that Clegg was justified in what he did.The film shows how Emerton slowly figures out that Clegg is Syn, and how Syn and his crew do manage to escape again at the conclusion. But the film is a fun one for all that, and a fitting conclusion to Arliss's curious and worthy film career. Brief as it was he did raise the level of acting by his subtleties - and erased some of the bombast that plagued Victorian and Edwardian theater.