The Highwayman (1951 film)

The Highwayman
Official theatrical poster
Directed by Lesley Selander
Produced by Hal E. Chester
Jack Dietz
Written by Jack DeWitt
Duncan Renaldo
Henry Blankfort
Based on The Highwayman
by Alfred Noyes
Starring Philip Friend
Wanda Hendrix
Narrated by Brian Aherne
Music by Herschel Burke Gilbert
Cinematography Harry Neumann
Distributed by Monogram Pictures
Release date
  • August 12, 1951 (1951-08-12)
Running time
 82 minutes
Country United States
Language English

The Highwayman is a 1951 Cinecolor film based on the poem of the same name by Alfred Noyes. Noyes wrote in his autobiography that he was pleasantly surprised by "the fact that in this picture, produced in Hollywood, the poem itself is used and followed with the most artistic care".[1] Released by Allied Artists who acquired the rights to Noyes' poem, the film was released in the same year as Columbia Pictures' Dick Turpin's Ride/The Lady and the Bandit also based on a poem by Noyes. Portions of the film were shot at Corriganville movie ranch.

Plot

The fairly straightforward love/betrayal/sacrifice theme of the Noyes poem is expanded to fill out the demands of an 82-minute-long film. The Highwayman himself is an aristocrat who leads a party of associates to hold up the well-to-do and distribute their takings to the needy. This campaign is broadened when they discover that innocents are being kidnapped and sold into slavery in the colonies. The finale however follows the poem more closely as the Highwayman is betrayed to the authorities, soldiers march to set an ambush, his lover Bess sacrifices herself to give warning and the hero is shot down on the highway as he gallops to take revenge.

Cast

Notes

  1. ↑ Noyes, Alfred Two Worlds for Memory Lippincott, 1953
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