I Watch Films: The Moonraker

 

The Moonraker

It’s the English Civil War, Charles I has been executed, Charles II is on the run after losing the battle of Worcester. Anthony, Earl of Dawlish (George Baker), is the Moonraker, a famed Royalist cavalier who smuggles people in and out of the country. With Charles Stuart disguised as a servant they try to get him to the coast, avoiding the Roundhead troops trying to capture him.

This then is the story, the Moonraker fights soldiers so they can escape, they travel to the next place where they try to lay low pretending to be regular people; they are discovered and have to fight free. Also travelling is a mis-matched coach with a loud-mouthed royalist, a puritan preacher with a secret, and Anne Wyndham and her servant, on the way to meet her fiancé Colonel Beaumont, in charge of finding the Moonraker and Charles Stuart in the district.

In the final sequence everyone ends up in a large inn by the sea, and Anne falls for the Moonraker when he sacrifices himself to protect everyone around him, from Charles Stuart, through the innkeeper and his family, to Anne herself. An enjoyable if minor historical swashbuckler, and one that isn’t especially interested in the larger history. There are Royalists and there are Roundheads and they’re opposed. Why, for what reason? A brief appearance of Oliver Cromwell (John Le Mesurier in serious mode) has him entirely focussed on capturing Royalists.

Watch This: Some good swordfights, including some on horseback
Don’t Watch This: Very standard historical swashbuckler