Film 2014 : Dead of Night (1945)
My New Year's Day movie, Ealing's celebrated ghost / horror story anthology film. Nice to see Mervyn Johns underplaying his role as the troubled architect, caught up in a dream that has come to life - my last sight of him had been as the barnstorming, bible thumping paterfamilias in Pink String and Sealing Wax. The framing narrative, gathering various storytellers at a country retreat, feels like one of J B Priestley's 'time' plays.
Sally Anne Howes' story is perhaps the most shocking of all -- what seems to be a classic 'time-slip' narrative along the lines of The Children of Green Knowe and Tom's Midnight Garden (both of which post-date this) begins as a game of hide and seek in a rambling mansion. She takes a stairway and meets a young boy, who tells her his name is Francis Kent - and he's terrified of his sister Constance. This is none other then than the Road Hill House murder victim and murderer, as made famous in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. (Constance Kent died in 1944, so was not in a position to complain.)
The Charters and Caldicott Parratt and Potter golf interlude feels like an anticipation of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). "Because a chap becomes a ghost, surely that doesn't mean he ceases to be a gentleman. " Naunton Wayne's elaborate hand signals, trying to initialise a dematerialisation, are also surely the origin of Rentaghost's pinched nose displacement technique.
Michael Redgrave's intense, disturbing performance as the ventriloquist whose dummy talks back is justly celebrated and rightly placed as (nearly) the last tale in the movie. And then we have the ending, which was new to me -- I wonder if it's the first of its kind in movies.
This disc arrived from lovefilm back in November, so in the hope of trying to get more value for money out my subscription, I will endeavour to write these up as they turn up.
Next Episode : High Treason