A Birtish village, the early 1800's, when Napoleon tried to conquer all
of Europe: Several Englishmen favoured their own well-being over the
well-being of their nation, including the local squire Sedgefield (Alan
Lawrance), who works in the French's employ and has recruited
short-on-money soldier George Heeningham (Andrew Laurence) as his chief
stool-pigeon, mainly because he is best pals with Jack Wraydon (Bruce
Seton), Captain in the British army, and in love with his sister Rose
(Pearl Cameron). But George wants out ... Sedgefield has a meeting with
his own employer, the Chief (Tod Slaughter), who turns out to be the
mad-as-a-atter uncle of captain Jack who mainly wants his revenge on his
family, and has thus signed up with the French. When he's not working for
them though, he relishes in killing young women. Captain Jack is somehow
tricked into challenging another man to a duel, something that is
punishable by death for the Captain of the British army, and suddenly he
finds himself on the run, and his situation is not made any better by the
fact that he's blamed for all the murders committed by the Chief. The only
man he can trust nor is George, but how far can you trust a man who was
once a spy for the French? Eventually, Captain Jack manages to uncover
the operations of his mad uncle and have him killed by his own deathtrap
after the Chief has killed Sedgefield (who much too late saw his error),
and with the help of George, Jack is cleared of all accusations ... One
of these bad films you can't help but somehow like anyhow: Made on the
cheap, The Curse of the Wraydons is quite obviously based on a
play, the stagey directorial effort does little to disguise that, and thus
the whole thing is a bit dialogue-heavy - which is not a good thing
especially since the whole cast is below average, except for Tod
Slaughter, who takes his hamming-it-up a bit too far and at times comes
off like a cartoon character. Add to this a plotline that is a tad too
convoluted for its own good and doesn't always make perfect sense, and
you've got ... well, a less than perfect movie of course - a bad one
actually -, but good (unintentional) fun nevertheless.
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