Watch The Black Rider For Free

Admirable film.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The Black Rider is directed by Wolf Rilla and written by A.R. Rawlinson. It stars Jimmy Hanley, Rona Anderson, Leslie Dwyer, Lionel Jeffries, Beatrice Varley and Micahel Golden. Music is by Wilfred Burns and cinematography by Geoffrey Faithful.There's a grand line of British movies involving smugglers/gun runners that use some supernatural legend to hide their crooked activities. Think The Ghost Train and Will Hay classics like Oh! Mr Porter and Ask A Policenman, and you find it's a splinter of the horror comedy that has been well served in Blighty. The Black Rider carried on this tradition but only with a modicum of success. Out of Nettlefold Studios, it's by definition a quintessential B movie. It clocks in at just over an hour, is low on production value but oozes the cheap and cheery ambiance that makes it impossible to dislike. Plot basically follows the concept of a small coastal town in awe of a local spook said to haunt the ruins up there on the hill. Cue sightings of said spook (a hooded monk), an investigation of Famous Five type proportions by some straight backed heroes, a snapshot of ye olde Brit village life and low and behold there's some crooks to be snuffed out for a big hooray ending! Throw in a bunch of motorcycle riders and their awesome bikes, though this is no Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and it rounds out as a brisk and amiable time waster; with Rilla showing nice fluid camera work that often belies the low budget afforded the production.Safe as houses really, or in this case, Brockham Manor! 6/10

If you remove the thought that Jimmy Hanley is the British Marlon Brando in this biker movie made around the same time as the classic 'The Wild One', then you might enjoy this laid-back tale of smugglers, deceit, dads, and dark pubs.Jerry (Hanley) is a reporter who rides a motorbike despite the disapproval of his parents - the fact that he seems rather elderly is neither here nor there! There's a girlfriend, a local legend of a ghost, and a nice comic turn from a young Kenneth Connor.The local rich chappie and maybe villain of the piece is Lionel Jeffries, in a reliable performance. Hanley himself is adequate but perhaps an actor like Albert Finney would have been so much more interesting as Jerry. However, 'The Black Rider' is a good wheeze and a decent little B movie.

This sturdy British B-picture features a plot right out of Enid Blyton or Scooby-Doo. A gang of crooks, bent on smuggling "atomic sabotage equipment" into the country (crumbs!), are using the legend of the Black Rider to scare people away from crumbling Brocken Castle, where they have a secret headquarters in the dungeons. Gosh!The film is best enjoyed for its view of the vanished innocence of 50s Britain. This is a place where smiling librarians select handpicked novels for little old ladies, where the teapot is always full, where the harmless village drunk (Kenneth Connor) is plied with booze by indulgent locals and where the local youths are too busy fixing their motorbikes to bother with vandalising the bus shelter. No Hells Angels these - they are all clean-cut and impeccably polite, trundling along the leafy lanes at a sedate 25 mph or participating in motorised egg-and-spoon races at the village fete.Jimmy Hanley and Rona Anderson make a charming hero and heroine, Lionel Jeffries is good as the urbane villain and there' s a jolly, infuriatingly catchy theme tune. Nobody gets killed and even Hanley's irascible employer and future father-in-law turns out to be a decent cove at the end, even buying his own motorcycle and sidecar combination for some exhilarating spins with the missus. Somehow I doubt if Quentin Tarantino will be doing a remake.

I only recently found out about this movie thanks to ITV screening it. As it was on during the early hours, I set the video to record it and was pleased I did. A group of smugglers are 'haunting' a castle, which happens to be haunted anyway by a monk. One of the smugglers poses as this monk and frightens some of the locals. A reporter and his girlfriend decide to investigate this and discover these smugglers are importing parts to build an atomic bomb which could course great loss of life and destruction over a large area. They get arrested at the end.This movie also gives you an idea on what life was like during the 1950's including a village fete which were popular at the time and still are today.The nuclear jitters of the time probably spawned the movie, which was made at the height of the Atomic Age.As well as Jimmy Hanley, it also stars Lionel Jefferies (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and Carry On star Kenneth Conner. All play good parts. The movie has a great theme and score too.This movie is worth watching if you get the chance as it is rather hold to get hold of.Rating: 3 and a half stars out of 5.