The Moon-Spinners

This 1964 Disney production adapts a novel by Mary Stewart and was shot in Crete. Nikky, a young Englishwoman, arrives with her aunt at a small hotel on the island and is immediately unsettled by their reception; the owner is cold and her brother Stratos, just back from London, is openly hostile. Nikky makes friends with Mark, an Englishman staying there, and when he is shot at one night she finds herself in the middle of a jewel theft. The film is built as an adventure for younger viewers, but the tension is kept real and the Cretan landscape is used generously. It is one of the last films Hayley Mills made for Disney; Eli Wallach plays the villain, and Pola Negri, a star of silent cinema, makes her final screen appearance. Who it's for: viewers who like classic Disney adventure and family films. Who it's not for: anyone wanting an intricate mystery; the solution is guessable from early on.