Review: The Moon-Spinners (DMC #39)
“Moon-spinners, spin me a moon tonight. Moon-spinners, spin it with a silver light…”
Last night we watched The Moon-Spinners—yet another Hayley Mills film, and the 39th film in the Disnerd Movie Challenge! If you watched with us last night, feel free to skip the synopsis and jump straight to our review.
Synopsis
Nikky Ferris and her aunt Frances (Fran), a musicologist, take a trip to the village of Aghios Georgios on the island of Crete. A boy named Alexis leads them through a wedding party to his family’s hotel, called The Moon-Spinners. Meanwhile, Alexis’s mother Sophia, who runs the hotel, confronts her brother Stratos, demanding to know why he has returned from England. She suspects her brother is engaging in something illegal, but Stratos tells her off. Although Sophia coldly rejects Nikky and Fran, saying they have no rooms available because of the wedding, Alexis points out there are some available rooms and Sophia allows him to take the women upstairs. Stratos bursts into the room, angrily demanding to know what the women are doing in his hotel, but Fran stands up to him. He relents, but tells them they are to leave the following morning. Nikky later looks out over their balcony and spots a young British man, Mark Camford, in the bay and is immediately smitten with him. Down at the bay, Stratos and his cousin Lambis accuse Mark of swimming in the Bay of Dolphins, but Mark deflects the accusation. That night, Nikky and Fran join Mark for dinner amidst the wedding celebration. Later in the evening, Stratos warns Mark, Nikky, and Fran that they should stay away from the Bay of Dolphins due to sharks. While Fran is introduced to the bride and groom, Nikky goes upstairs to retrieve a gift for the married couple. Stratos has been searching Nikky and Fran’s room, but when Nikky catches him, he claims he was merely looking for one of his books. Nikky returns to Mark, who invites her to meet him on the beach the next morning. A little later, Stratos and Lambis “go fishing” and Mark follows them. It’s a trap, and Lambis shoots Mark in the arm, causing Mark to topple into the sea. The next morning, Nikky cannot find Mark. She begins wandering the island and eventually comes across an abandoned church where a trail of blood leads her to Mark. Although Mark refuses to tell Nikky what happened, she deduces Stratos was involved. Mark refuses help from the police or any professionals, leaving Nikky to return to the village to gather a bottle of brandy, bandages, a blanket, and clean clothes to tend to his wound.
Stratos cleans out Mark’s room to make it look like he left. Fran notices her first aid kit and a blanket are missing from her room (having been taken by Nikky to help Mark). She asks Stratos for help, inadvertently tipping him off that Mark is still alive. Back at the church, Mark tells Nikky that she and Fran must get away from the village as quickly as possible. Nikky leaves but encounters Stratos who deduces that she was helping Mark. He storms into the crypt to try to kill Mark, but, Mark has already escaped. In anger, Stratos turns his rage on Nikky. Later, Stratos returns to the hotel claiming he has not found Nikky. He says he will continue looking for her while he and Lambis go quail hunting. Sophia confronts Stratos again, knowing he was lying about Nikky and demanding to know where she is. Stratos and Lambis hunt for Mark, who manages to avoid them while caring for his injured arm. Luckily, he finds Alexis nearby, and asks the boy to make sure Nikky and Fran escape to the nearby village of Aghios Nicolaos. On his way to find the two women, Alexis hears Nikky screaming from inside a windmill where Stratos imprisoned her, and he runs to get Mark’s help. Back at the hotel, Sophia tells Stratos she has had enough and will not stand by his illegal activities anymore, even it means poverty for her and Alexis. Stratos threatens her son to keep her quiet. At the windmill, Alexis manages to ride one of the spinning blades up to the window to free Nikky. Nikky reluctantly follows Alexis in clinging to the windmill to escape. Mark tells Alexis to keep an eye out for Stratos. At this point, Nikky is fed up and wants to leave Mark behind. He, too, is angry, after their argument results in her slapping him. He storms off and runs into Lambis. The two fight, but Nikky has followed Mark and she knocks Lambis out by hitting him with his fallen gun. Nikky and Mark find shelter in the nearby Temple of Apollo. Mark finally reveals that he was wrongly accused of stealing the jewels he was entrusted to deliver to the Countess of Fleet. He suspects Stratos was behind the theft, and that he’s hidden the jewels somewhere in the Bay of Dolphins, but he has no proof to clear his name. Meanwhile, Stratos has tracked the two to the temple, but he is frightened off by feral cats.
Nikky and Mark wake the next morning and meet a man named Anthony Gamble, the British consul. Anthony offers to drive them and Fran down to Aghios Nicolaos. Anthony’s wife is a nurse and can give Mark the medical attention he needs for his arm, so Nikky convinces Mark to follow Anthony back to his home. At his home, Anthony’s wife, Cynthia, tends to Mark’s wound. Anthony retreats to his office, where Stratos has been waiting, and he scolds Stratos for making a mess of things. Cynthia tells Nikky that Mark should go to the hospital in Athens because his wound could be infected. During lunch, a drunken Cynthia reveals her distaste for a woman named Madame Habib, who owns many expensive jewels. Nikky shares this with Mark who recognizes the name Madame Habib. They discover that a recently arrived yacht belongs to Madame Habib, and they realize that Stratos and Anthony plan to sell the stolen jewels to her. Fran arrives for the planned trip to Athens. Anthony arranges a hearse for Mark to travel in, while Nikky and Fran ride with him, but a parade impedes their progress. Mark insists on going after Stratos and jumps out of the hearse. Mark disappears on a bus, and Nikky grabs a nearby motorboat to go directly to Madame Habib’s yacht to stop the sale. Madame Habib is extremely skeptical of Nikky’s story, but the mention of Anthony gets Madame Habib’s interest. Meanwhile, Mark has followed Stratos to the Bay of Dolphins and watches Stratos lift a package up from the bottom of the sea—the jewels! Mark and Stratos fight, and at the end of it it looks like Mark is killed. Alexis, who was watching the fight, raises the alarm. Stratos arrives on the yacht, while Madame Habib hides Nikky in a closet. Stratos demands his money in exchange for the jewels. Madame Habib disappears briefly and Nikky accidentally hiccups loudly, causing Stratos to find her. Mark arrives just in time to fight of Stratos again, and during the fight the jewels are broken. Mark punches Stratos and knocks him out, and Madame Habib returns with her security team and the Cretan police. Fran and Alexis arrive, and the police take Stratos away. Mark asks Madame Habib to have the jewels back so that he can return them to the Countess and clear his name. Madame Habib reveals that the Countess is one of her oldest and dearest friends, and she would never think to take the jewels that belonged to her friend. Alexis returns to the village while Mark and Nikky wave goodbye, with Alexis inviting them to return to Crete and have a big wedding.
Thoughts Before Watching
Megan: I’d never even heard of this film before I started compiling the master list of films for the Disnerd Movie Challenge. I somehow seem to have missed a lot of Hayley Mills’s later work. I do enjoy Hayley Mills, and this looks like it might be some sort of romantic drama, so I’m hoping I’ll like it. I get the sense that something dramatic is going to happen from the looks of the first featured image on Disney Plus (not the one featured above, but the one where Hayley Mills and I presume the male lead are running away from something).
Kevin: My very first thought based on just the title alone is that this has something to do with outer space. I don’t know, that does seem too obvious, but what’s the real meaning behind “moon-spinners” if that’s not the case? But then again, looking at those promotional still images and that movie description, I’m sure I’m wrong. It has Haley Mills, and it looks like it’s a more adult role. She’s come a long way since her character in Pollyanna, so I’m interested in how she does with a more mature film.
Thoughts After Watching
Objectively it’s a good film, but personally it’s just okay
Kevin: I won’t sugarcoat it; this movie was just below average for me. I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t particularly enjoy it all that much either. That said, I cannot deny that it is, objectively speaking, a good movie. That may sound silly to say since art is subjective, but I say this because the things this movie does well are things not only Megan and I noticed, but so did plenty of other people, and they’re the things that many reviewers have said are among the film’s stronger qualities, so I believe it’s correct to say this is an objectively well-made film. My personal opinion of this film is sort of the opposite of Peter Pan. With that movie, it has so many problems that do not hold up today and it can arguably be called average, if not less than that, but I really still enjoy the heck out of it. With The Moon-Spinners, I may not have enjoyed it all that much, but I believe it deserves recognition.
Great female cast!
Megan: One of the first things I noticed about this film was the sheer range of strong and unique female characters! While other films of this era tend to place women in stereotypical roles like wife, mother, or domestic worker, this film gives us so much more. There’s Nikky—a young woman with the agency to go off exploring on her own (yes, her aunt is with her, but Nikky does quite a lot on her own once they reach Crete). There’s Aunt Fran, who is more like a peer than a parental figure to Nikky, and knows how to persuade her way into getting what she wants. There’s Sophia who runs (and possibly owns?) the Moon-Spinners hotel—she’s not just a savvy business woman, but also willing to stand up to her brother, Stratos, when he’s up to no good. She’s also the mother of the young boy Alexis, but we get a rather refreshing change of pace with this film since her role as “mother” is downplayed, only proving important when Stratos threatens her son. Later on we also meet Cynthia. While she’s initially introduced as the wife of the British Consulate, we also learn that she’s a skilled nurse, and a somewhat lonely socialite. Probably the most fascinating female character comes at the end: Madame Habib. I believe this is perhaps the first non-royal wealthy woman we’ve met throughout the Disney canon up until now (and if I’m correct, we won’t meet another like her until the old woman from The Aristocats). Sure, her potential willingness to purchase stolen jewels makes her straddle the villainous line, and Cynthia seems to find her background a bit scandalous, but even so, we see a shrewd woman who owns a yacht, a cheetah (what?!), and clearly has the means to buy whatever pleases her.
Megan: What’s more, we also see several instances of women supporting other women throughout the film. Fran is Nikky’s reliable confidant throughout the film, and we see that Fran is willing to sacrifice her own comfort because she cares for Nikky (I mean you have to really love someone to swap seats on that crowded bus and get a smelly dead fish swinging in your face). We also see that Nikky and Fran, though they assertively ask (almost demand) Sophia to give them a hotel room, they also are understanding of how much work Sophia does, and how exhausting it must be hosting such a wedding. They’re kind to Sophia, and compliment her on her work. Sophia, in turn, does what she can to help reunite Fran and Nikky by going straight to the culprit: her brother Stratos. Even Madame Habib, in her own way, supports Nikky by taking the young woman at her word, and hiding her from Stratos. There’s no petty bickering between women, and no competition for a man’s affections, which makes this film incredibly refreshing.
Megan: I believe credit for this wide range of strong female characters and the way they support each other must be given to Mary Stewart, the author of the book that inspired this film. Since the film was written, directed, produced, and (judging from IMDb) largely created by men, we do get some unfortunate “male gaze” influence, but the essence of these female characters remains, and that is all thanks to the story that Mary Stewart created. As I mentioned in my review of Pollyanna, having a woman’s perspective in creating female-centric stories really makes all the difference.
The most mature film we’ve seen so far
Kevin: With the well written cast of female characters highlighted above coupled with the story being told, The Moon-Spinners deals with a lot more adult themes. There is violence, both actual and implied, and most scenes are blocked out in ways that heighten the sense of mystery and suspense. Humor is especially light here, with perhaps the most comical moment being a scene where Nikky sneaks a bottle of brandy out of a bar while hiding from the patrons, and one old woman spots the bottle appearing to move by itself, perhaps thinking she has gone senile. It’s a funny moment, but it is not the most laughable scene Disney has put out. It is a clue that the movie is not meant to be the light-hearted, family-friendly film of its predecessors. It’s a thriller first, and so the movie concentrates on the mystery aspect of the story. While there is no “big reveal” in the classic sense, since we know Stratos is our villain from nearly the first second we meet him, the mystery elements are still done well. They’re shown to us by building up Mark’s reluctance to telling Nikky the reason why he needs to clear his name so badly. Mark is enigmatic enough to the point that we choose to keep an eye out for anything shifty from him, yet we also don’t at all feel that he’s a bad guy. Really, it’s his past that drives the plot forward. We also get other moments of maturity sprinkled throughout the film thanks to Haley Mills’ performance as Nikky. Once more, we see just why she was cast so often (fun fact that I learned while researching this: Walt Disney apparently considered Hayley Mills for the role of Mary Poppins until he saw Julie Andrews on Broadway). The character of Nikky is presented as a young woman going through the emotional pangs of romantic love. There is definitely some criticism that is well-deserved here (more on that from Megan below), but when you compare this to Mills’ previous roles, just the very fact that they introduce romance is more adult. But, what really takes Nikky from a slightly simpler, love-struck young woman to a more well-rounded character is how she adapts to the situations she finds herself in. Love-struck though she may be, I believe what ultimately drive Nikky’s motivations are her innate goodness and understanding of right and wrong. She knows Stratos has done terrible things and will do even more if he is not stopped. She also recognizes Mark’s unspoken need for help and wastes no time in giving him that very need. What starts off as a bit of a vacation for Nikky soon turns into an adventure, and she is caught up in something bigger. Nikky dives head first into doing what she can to help solve this mystery, putting her very life at risk several times. It’s a very different role than that of a young, cheerful girl craving the affection of her aunt, or long-lost twin girls struggling to put their family back together. Hayley Mills’ earlier roles, while serious in their own way, had far more innocence about them, but here she proves that she can handle more serious characters and stories.
Still some lingering sexism…
Megan: With more named female characters than named male characters, this film easily passes the Bechdel test. We see several conversations between Nikky and Aunt Fran, both of them and Sophia, Nikky and Cynthia, and Nikky and Madame Habib, and while many of their conversations do involve male characters at times, the male characters are not the sole subject of conversation. Instead we get to see these women having conversations about themselves, their lives, and the things that they want (even if that “want” is as simple as a hotel room). However, there are still moments in the film that show the sexism of the time.
As strong as Nikky is in how she goes off on her own, rescues Mark, and fights off both Stratos and his allies to eventually bring a just end to the story, she still falls prey to the unattainable ideals of femininity. After a wonderful evening with Mark, Nikky doesn’t talk to Fran about how much fun she had. Instead she begins fretting about her looks and what she said while she was with Mark. Take a look at this exchange:
NIKKY: Oh Fran, honestly. Tell me honestly, do you think I’ll ever have what the magazines call “allure”?
FRAN: You’ve got the best of all qualities. You’re completely yourself.
NIKKY: I don’t think that’s such an advantage. Oh, look at me. I wish I could do something to my face.
Nikky then proceeds to pose her hair in different styles, to which Fran replies they make her look “too old” or “too young.” Nikky becomes preoccupied with her looks not for her own sake, but for how she thinks her appearance makes her look in the eyes of the man she desires. She’s worried she’s not attractive enough, and that she said all the wrong things. While Fran insists that being herself is the best option, Nikky cannot believe it because society is constantly feeding her a different message through magazines and other media. Later, when Mark is telling Nikky that he’d had a date the night he was attacked, Nikky’s primary concern is whether or not the girl he had a date with was pretty. In other words, was the girl prettier than her? This other woman isn’t even anywhere near Crete, and yet Nikky is still preoccupied with where she measures up in terms of idealized female beauty. In the end this preoccupation with beauty is not the downfall of Nikky’s character—she still goes on to do all manner of courageous things—but it is somewhat symptomatic of how pervasive the female ideal has been ever since the media realized making women feel bad about themselves could be an effective sales tactic, and it unfortunately hasn’t gone away since this film was made.
Megan: The male characters also contribute to some of the sexist moments in this film. Stratos, for one, lords himself over his sister Sophia and refuses to help her run the inn, expecting her to do all the hosting (i.e., women’s work) in the midst of a giant wedding party. Stratos also seems to have no qualms about rifling through Nikky and Fran’s things once he suspects them of something. Sure, he’s the villain, and we’re not meant to like him, but time and again we see that he is willing to resort to lies, gaslighting, threats of violence, actual violence, kidnapping, and whatever else he can think of to try to keep the women of the story under his control. While he also has it out for Mark, the majority of Stratos’s victims are unfortunately the female characters of this story.
Stratos’s friend Anthony is also problematic. Though as the consul he has a bit more finesse to his dealings and avoids violence, we get the sense that all is not right in his household. Cynthia tells Nikky “Anthony will take charge. Anthony always takes charge.” Though nothing is ever explicitly stated, we get the sense that Cynthia doesn’t have a say in her own life without Anthony’s stamp of approval. She admits to Nikky that she’s “so frightfully out of touch” from everyone she knows or used to know. Later, at dinner, Cynthia arrives drunk. She tells Nikky and Anthony “I can’t make friends with people here.” Anthony seems to dislike the people she was friends with back home. Has he purposefully kept her isolated from her friends so he didn’t have to interact with them? Or is he completely unaware of how lonely (and quite likely depressed) his wife is? In either case, he seems to be contributing to his wife’s unhappiness.
Even Mark has his problematic moments. For one thing, why wait so long to tell Nikky what’s going on? It was clear from the very beginning that she was now unfortunately involved in whatever mess Mark had got himself into, so why keep her in the dark for so long? From a story perspective, I get it—holding off creates suspense. However, when Mark finally reveals that he’s been blamed for a theft he didn’t commit, it’s somewhat anticlimactic and, honestly, a bit boring. After all that time, that’s what he was hiding? It seems to me that he could have shown a little more trust in Nikky earlier in the story, especially considering how much she risked and suffered through to make sure Mark’s wounds were tended to and that he was safe from Stratos.
Alexis, too, seems to have already learned sexist behavior toward women, as he tells Nikky when trying to get her to jump from the windmill, “You don’t fall if you don’t be stupid girl.” It’s not just saying she won’t fall as long as she’s careful—he’s insinuating that girls are stupid, and as long as Nikky resists the supposed impulse to be stupid, she’ll be safe. I don’t expect he’d say the same thing to Mark if he were the one stuck up there. Although, if the roles had been reversed, Alexis still might have made a jab at Mark’s masculinity if he’d shown reluctance to jump from the windmill.
Not a sensitive man in sight.
Megan: There’s also the matter of toxic masculinity on display here. Not once do we see a male character expressing any sort of emotional vulnerability. Even when Mark is physically wounded, he’s still trying to prove that he’s “tough” and can muscle his way through the problem, even though he clearly can’t. He even has a hard time accepting Nikky’s help, as he’s preoccupied with saving Nikky (the “damsel”) from his problems rather than tending to his wounds. While he expresses some small modicum of vulnerability when he finally trusts Nikky with his story about why Stratos is after him in the first place, it’s not an emotional vulnerability. He reveals the facts of what happened, but he shares very little about his emotions. We also see every male character resorting to violence or threats of violence first as a means of resolving conflict. We see this between Mark and Stratos, and also with Lambis. Repeatedly showing men in roles where being a “real” man is defined by violence and a lack of emotion is detrimental to all men, and our society. If society and the media presented men calmly and rationally solving their problems, and actually feeling their emotions instead of bottling them up, perhaps we wouldn’t have so many men routinely committing acts of violence or suffering from various mental illnesses. I’m not saying it would be a cure-all, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to tell boys and men that there’s more than one way to be a “real” man.
Kevin: This really needs to be repeated again; there’s more than one way to be a real man. Mark reminds me a lot of Father in Swiss Family Robinson. Father is a typical man, devoid of emotion but making completely rational decisions all the while. Mark, on the other hand, doesn’t always make rational decisions, but he still embodies the “male ideal” of not showing emotions. Where Father was boring because he displayed little personality and served to just be a stereotype, Mark is boring because he is devoid of both emotion and rational thinking, preferring to deal with situations through acts of fisticuffs. While I like him as a character, he comes off a few times as a typical sort of “pretty boy” who Nikky is enraptured with. Mark is initially suave and cool; again, he is a “typical” male. Once the plot gets going and we see Mark in a state of vulnerability, that’s the moment where we should have seen Mark’s composure crumble even just a little bit. There’s nothing wrong with admitting when you need help. It’s a good thing Nikky is wise enough to keep helping Mark despite his protests, but I’m not certain he would have survived his last fights with Stratos had she not.
The locations are gorgeous
Kevin: This is a short point, but can we please just admire the shots of the island of Crete for a moment? Look at those beaches, those mountains, the lush greenery, and the vast and glistening oceans. The settings are incredible, and if I ever get an opportunity to visit Crete, I would absolutely love to be lounging on one of those beaches. The interior shots are also great to look at. Many of them were shot on set, but they have incredible detail. I don’t know for sure if the crypt was a set, but it is fantastic, as is the church right above it. Major props to the film crew for these sets and locations!
The ending feels rushed.
Megan: Overall I really enjoyed the film, and even commented to Kevin while we were watching it that nothing about it felt predictable (with the exception of Anthony—his arrival just felt too convenient to be good). My only complaint is that the ending felt rushed. The final confrontation between Nikky, Mark, Stratos, and Madame Habib is great, but the movie comes to a rather abrupt end only minutes later. When I first finished watching the film it felt like it was left unfinished, but after going back to rewatch the ending, it does manage to tie up all the loose ends of the story to some degree. I guess I was just enjoying the story so much I wanted a bit more of an elongated resolution, but perhaps that’s just me.
Kevin: The Moon-Spinners is one film I think I’m going to have to watch a couple more times to see what my true thoughts are. In my research on this movie after watching it, I learned that it’s been fairly well received and is still enjoyed by a lot of modern audiences. I totally get the appeal it had back in 1964; I was kept in suspense throughout the film, which was such a refreshing take compared to plenty of other live-action Disney films. The characters are well written (minus some of the other problems mentioned up above), and the plot moves along at a steady pace and makes for a very easy movie to watch. Going solely based on this first-time watch, I really wasn’t a big fan. But, I will give credit where credit is due. I may not have been a big fan of this, but it deserves a better score because it is actually a good film.
Verdict
Kevin: 3
Megan: 6
Final Score: 4.5
What did you think of The Moon-Spinners? Share your thoughts in the comments below!