THE BLACK RIDER (1954)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Wolf Rilla, son of Walter "Doctor Mabuse" Rilla, enjoyed one career-transcending moment when he helmed the 1960 VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED. I say "transcending" rather than "defining" because most of Rilla's career consisted of directing low-budget British flicks, many of which looked like "quota quickies."

THE BLACK RIDER does show Rilla dipping his toes in the shallow end of the metaphenomenal pool. At a time when at least a few British units were trying to compete, on lower budgets, with the American sci-fi boom, RIDER looks a lot like a pokier version of one of those British modern-Gothics of the 1930s, like 1934's THE BLACK ABBOT. In fact, the script uses the same trope as ABBOT, for it deals with how conspirators are hiding in a run-down monastery and using a spectral being to keep the curious away. Yet the titular "Black Rider" is of such minor consequence to the story that the script starts out calling the spectre "the Black Monk," as if he's the ghost of some condemned religious votary, and then uses the term "Black Rider," who's given the connotation of a Satanic Wild Huntsman running around snatching up souls for hell. The movie opens with one scene of a villager wandering too near the monastery and getting the crap scared out of him by the Rider-- who is mounted not on a traditional horse, but on a disguised motorcycle.

Neither the phony spirit nor the malcontents behind him are the stars of this show, but by an odd coincidence, hero Jimmy Marsh (Jimmy Hanley) is also an aficianado of the 1950s motorbikes. In fact, when he's planning to unveil his new vehicle to his girlfriend Mary (Rona Anderson) and her father Robert, there's some misfired comic business about how the two of them think Jimmy's concealing some scandalous affair from them. Indeed, there's so little going on in this sleepy town that it's like they have to conjure up a scandal to stay awake. 

Robert, editor of the local newspaper for which Jimmy writes on occasion, doesn't like motorcycles because they represent change, and he doesn't care about the local legend of the Black Rider for much the same reason. Jimmy thinks there's some deeper story about the monastery, but when he investigates at night, someone knocks him on the head and tosses him down a dry well. His assailants, evidently intending to end Jimmy's life, don't realize that the well-wall is broken and allows Jimmy access to a tunnel, through which he wanders until he exits the monastery.

The film then dithers around for a while, showing other clean-cut British youths tooling around on their bikes for some reason until Jimmy can convince some friends to make a Hardy Boys assault on the monastery. The fight between Jimmy's group and the criminals is over so fast it doesn't rate as belonging to the combative mode, but once the villains are corralled, it turns out that they're actually spies. In fact, they have in their possession a compact "atomic sabotage device," with which they intended to blast a nearby tank factory or something like that. The head villain gets no good lines but is played by one of the few faces modern viewers might recognize, Lionel (FIRST MEN IN THE MOON) Jeffries.

Most of the movie is dull, with the minor exception of a few lovely shots of the English countryside, well composed by cinematographer Geoffrey Faithfull. He would work with Rilla again on VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED and with Robert Day on both CORRIDORS OF BLOOD and FIRST MAN INTO SPACE. Writer A.R. Rawlinson had seen better days contributing to the scripts for Hitchcock's 1934 MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and Stevenson's 1937 KING SOLOMON'S MINES.