Davies is the nautical expert, but not very good at dealing with people, while Carruthers is just the reverse, so these two characters exemplify the notion of 'the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.' This is an instance where I believe the book should be read before watching the movie, as the movie with its limited length glosses over a lot of the nautical detective work covered in the novel. Expert yatchsman Arthur Davies ( Simon MacCorkindale) has invited his friend Charles Carruthers ( Michael York) for a sailing vacation, but some clues Davies has already discovered and further investigation lead them both to believe a sinister plot is afoot. The plot of the novel and the movie concerns the yatching adventures of two Englishmen circa 1901 among the Frisian Islands of Germany. The author Erskine Childers published only this one piece of fiction, but he led quite an adventurous life, which ended in a controversial execution by firing squad in 1922. It is one of the first spy novels ever written, and some even speculate that its publication better prepared Great Britain for entry into World War I eleven years later. The book of the same title was originally published in 1903 and is now freely available in the public domain. The movie starts out in London, although most of the plot takes place on the Frisian coast of Germany not far from England. This title is an appropriate one to pick for a PAL/UK feature, as it's a British adaption of a book by a British author, with a largely British cast.

This is the first featured CED for a title released only in the PAL/UK format, although it was mistakenly listed in some catalogs as being available as Vestron Stock No.

Riddle of the sands author