The Riddle of the Sands (1979)

So much average

A lot of fun.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It's 1901 and Simon MacCorkindale is a young British gentleman taking a sailing holiday alone off the Frisian Islands, near Germany's northern coast. He stumbles into a situation that arouses vague suspicions that something is up, and he sends for his college friend, Michael York, to visit him and bunk on his sailboat. To be brief about the whole thing, the two men uncover a plot by Kaiser Wilhelm to launch an invasion of England's defenseless east coast, using 100,000 German troops covered by the entire German fleet. The two Oxford men spoil it all after many suspenseful incidents.It's obviously not an expensive movie but it's not bad. A great deal of attention seems to have gone into period detail. The boats we see look like the boats we'd expect to see in 1901. This was pre-fiberglass and pre-epoxy. Every boat looks made of heavy wood that's become soggy with time and weighs a ton, including the dinghy. It must have been work to row one of those monsters.The filming was evidently done not in the Frisian Islands but off the coast of Holland, which is too bad. I wanted to get a look at the Frisian Islands. The Frisian language is well-known to linguists as being as close as it's possible to get to ordinary English. One sentence is practically identical in both languages, something to do with bread and cheese. The location shooting is impressive and evocative. The sea recedes and leaves vast areas of mud flats. Why anyone would vacation there is as much of a mystery as why the Kaiser would want to invade England in 1901. The espionage story is fantastic, resembling John Buchan. Nice shots of boats at sea though.The acting is of professional caliber for the most part, although the English actors playing Germans aren't too convincing. Jenny Agutter is wasted in a small part. I kept hoping that instead of the weather's being cold and damp all the time it would suddenly turn sunny and blazing hot so that she could take a dip but my wistful wish was, as usual, unrealized.But -- what's the matter with the film? It didn't quite click. Maybe it's partly my fault. The four or five German agents are all bundled up in big black overcoats and bowlers and I was confused at time about who was who, and why it was important to follow one of them and not another. Wolf Kahler was always recognizable but a bit young for Kaiser Willie.The narration, by York, sounds stilted to modern ears, over-correct in its grammar and too formal in its description of relationships and events that are decidedly informal in their nature. The direction doesn't help much. The mano a mano fights are clumsy. And there is a scene in which Michael York trails a couple of Germans into a complicated old barn with straw on the floor, a crooked staircase, and a loft above. York darts around from one hiding place to another in the background while the camera focuses on the German agents -- in the same shot, like kids playing hide and seek. All I could think of was the windmill scene in Hitchcock's "Foreign Correspondent." The scene I found most impressive? Michael York arrives at the station, in response to MacCorkindale's invitation. The two old friends stand staring at each other, using ritual forms of greeting. They don't embrace. They don't shake hands. York is impeccably dressed; MacCorkindale is in sloppy boating kit. Once aboard the sailboat, nothing has changed. The conversation is scant. The host doesn't offer the guest a drink or anything, and when York asks if it's possible to get anything to eat -- since he's been on the train for twelve hours at his host's request -- MacCorkindale answers nervously but eagerly that he thinks he has some cold tongue. The entire scene lasts about five minutes and is an almost perfect embodiment of the concept of "awkwardness." Two old friends who hardly know each other.

This must be one of my favourite films. It is so beautifully made and features a wonderful cast. Simon MacCorkindale is really great alongside Michael York who always puts is a great performance. Jenny Agutter is so beautiful and works so well beside the two male leads. This film captures the whole period very well and is a real boys own adventure sort of film. Alan Badel is great as Dollman as is Olga Dowe as his cranky wife Frau Dollman. She is the perfect foil for the beautiful Agutter. The baddies in this film are really great. What a shame we don't see more performances from Juergen Andersen, Michael Sheard, Hans Meyer and Wolf Kahler. I particularly like the scene where Michael York is in town having his breakfast. It is delightful and sums up his stiff upper lip Englishness. The village where he breakfasts is also truly delightful. Don't miss the beautiful scene on the beach with Agutter either. Do see it as you will enjoy the journey if you like romantic adventure films. It is beautiful.

As a long-time fan of the book I went to see the film with some trepidation, afraid it would have been mangled into an Edwardian James Bond parody. I need not have worried, for all but the last minutes - seconds even - this is as good a rendition as I could hope for. Fans of the book though, be warned (not a spoiler!), the ending, which I always believed would translate most effectively to film, has been replaced by a scene so crass that I cannot believe it was made by the same team as the rest of the film, but probably at the insistence of the producers. Otherwise this might well rate as my second favourite film of all time after The Third Man.

Whenever I surf over to IMDb I always seem to find forgotten classics that are unavailable in any format. This is another example of a great movie which never seems to resurface on VHS or DVD. At least this one was released on video at one time and can be found at secondhand vendors.No one has ever done a better job of transferring this lesser-known classic story to the screen. Michael York, Simon McCorkindale and Jenny Agutter are seldom better than they are here in quiet and understated performances. The director achieves the very spirit of the book in a seemingly effortless manner.Such a pity that no one who has the ability to resurrect this movie thinks it worthy of the DVD treatment it deserves.