Masked heroes have been the subject of much of my reading and viewing material since I was four years old, growing up to re-runs of Batman and The Lone Ranger. Somehow, however, I had missed out completely on Dr. Christopher Syn, the vicar of Dymchurch in the County of Kent, who would don the mask of the Scarecrow and fight for the tax relief of King George III's citizens. It wasn't until I first encountered a vague reference to him in Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that I first became aware of the character, and when Disney released the adventures on this DVD, I couldn't wait to add these adventures to the collection in my memory.

Patrick McGoohan (The Prisoner, The Three Lives of Thomasina) plays Dr. Christopher Syn, a modest man of the cloth who, accompanied by his sexton, Mr. Mipps (George Cole) and young John Banks (Sean Scully) perform smuggling operations at night as the Scarecrow, Hellspite, and the Curlew. Only Mipps and Banks knew the real identity of the Scarecrow, keeping the rest of the masked smugglers in the dark for Syn's safety as well as their own.

Naturally, the actions of these outlaws met with opposition. King George (Eric Pohlmann) sends General Pugh (Geoffrey Keen) out to County Kent to put a stop to these activities that are slowing the revenue to the royal coffers, and Pugh is determined to get his man, even if it means pressganging every able-bodied man in the county into the Royal Navy! And when one of the smugglers decides to take the bounty and slip the Scarecrow's future plans to Pugh, Dr. Syn has to find a way to put Pugh off the scent and set an example to keep any of the other smugglers from ever considering such treason again -- without violating the tenets of his faith!

The "Walt Disney Treasures" release of this series includes two discs. The first contains the three episodic adventures as they ran on Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color television series back in 1964, complete with Walt's original introductions. Even though televisions were not capable of showing widescreen shots at the time, the introductions were shot in it anyway, as was the film. The curious thing is that, while Disney acknowledges the literary character of Russell Thorndike's novel, he also refers, multiple times, to Dr. Syn being a real person. Leonard Maltin introduces the disc, providing much of the background information about the series.

The first disc also contains a bonus featurette, the sixteen-minute "Dr. Syn: The History of the Legend," in which Disney historians and others talk about the Thorndike's Syn novels, as well as other, competing films that used the character, like the Hammer Films production, "Night Creatures," in which they renamed the character Dr. Bliss.

On the second disc, we get the theatrical release of "Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow." This movie is, in actuality, the three episodes from television, edited together so that they flow as a single feature rather than as three separate adventures. Maltin introduces this one as well, explaining the difference in versions and crediting the editorial teams for their efforts, while also offering up a brief history of some of the actors involved.

The special featurette on this disc is the eleven-minute "Walt Disney: From Burbank to London," which focuses on the live-action films made by Disney in England. This was a particularly interesting bit of history, detailing how post-war England had frozen all funds going out of the country, thus blocking monies owed to Disney for theatrical runs of his animated films there. The Disney solution was to go to England, where he could then use the money in the country to make live action films with British actors. Viewers will learn a little bit about several of the films Disney made during this era, as well as an intriguing bit of trivia about an inspiration that struck Walt in England that led to a development at Disneyland.

As with all Walt Disney Treasures releases, Dr. Syn: The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh comes in a collectible tin case that holds not only the DVD case but also a certificate of authenticity and a collectible card featuring the likeness of McGoohan as Dr. Syn.

Source: The Trades - DVD Review: Walt Disney Treasures: Dr. Syn: The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh

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Holy Cow! I remember this series and I LOVED it! I need to see if I can find this. I am sure it will seem kind of cheesy by today's standards, but it was a classic.

Thank you!

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Jennifer