Black Rider, The (1954) – Nostalgia Central

Amiable town drunk George Amble (Kenneth Connor) swears he saw a cloaked figure leaving lonely Brockham Castle, close to a small fishing village in Southern England.

Most people think that George’s imagination was fired by legend and liquor, but Jerry Marsh (Jimmy Hanley), a young reporter for the local Swanhaven News and Mail, decides to investigate.

The legend tells of a monk in black robes and a cowl riding through the castle ruins on a fire-breathing black horse.

Any person crossing the path of this apparition is said to vanish from the face of the earth, whisked off to feed the eternal fires of hell.

Jerry – who is in love with local librarian Mary (Rona Anderson), the daughter of his irascible chief, Robert Plack (Leslie Dwyer) – buys a Triumph motorbike and joins the village motorcycle club.

During a club rally, Jerry meets Geoff Morgan (Edwin Richfield), a Customs and Excise officer, and Geoff tells him he is suspicious of Martin Brenner (Lionel Jeffries) and his niece, Karen (Valerie Hanson), the foreign occupants of the castle.

Jerry sets out to do some snooping (with the help of Mary) and encounters a few near-squeaks before he and the motorcycle club unmask Brenner as the head of a gang smuggling atomic weapons into the country and scaring off curious locals by pretending to be ghosts.

The low-budget effort was filmed at Nettlefold Studios in Walton-on-Thames (Surrey) and on location in Dorset by Butcher’s Film Service, who specialised in low-budget second features for British cinemas.

‘Brockham Castle’ was actually Corfe Castle on the Isle of Purbeck.

Jerry Marsh
Jimmy Hanley
Mary Plack
Rona Anderson
Robert Plack
Leslie Dwyer
Martin Brenner
Lionel Jeffries
Mrs Marsh
Beatrice Varley
Rakoff
Michael Golden
Karen
Valerie Hanson
Ted Lintott
Vincent Ball
Geoff Morgan
Edwin Richfield
George Amble
Kenneth Connor
Mario
Robert Rietty
Rackton
James Raglan
Landlord
Frank Atkinson
Joyce
Anne Gilleno
Corporal
Frank Taylor

Director
Wolf Rilla