A Place of One's Own (1945)

While known for Hammer Studios and a number of classic horror films from the 1950s through the 1970s, older British horror was quite a bit more reserved.  Not a problem, since there is always room for a good haunted house tale.

It is 1900, and Mr. and Mrs. Smedhurst (James Mason, Barbara Mullen) have put away a good nest egg from their drapery business and have decided to retire to the English countryside.  They purchase an estate called Bellingham House that has a bit of a reputation of being haunted.  Of course, Mr. Smedhurst will have nothing to do with such nonsense.

However, when they take in the young Annette (Margaret Lockwood) as a companion for Mrs. Smedhurst, their lodger begins to sense a presence trying to take her over.  It's small at first, and even her Dr. Selbie (Dennis Price), her soon-to-be fiance, ignores it. 

It is when she is completely overcome by a wasting disease that Dr. Selbie cannot diagnose that he and Smedhurst begin to face the fact that there is something otherworldly affecting Annette, and the only cure may be a figure from the ghost's past.

As can be expected from a British production in the mid 1940s, this is done on an extremely low budget and resembles a stage play as much as it does a movie.  There are really no scares, but rather a sense of atmosphere and foreboding reflected in the Smedhursts, Annette and their servants throughout.  It is a slow progression, but with a satisfying finale.

As for the actors, James Mason shines in this, chewing the scenery every chance he gets.  It would be nice of Annette was more developed, since her relationship with Dr. Selbie parallels in some ways the life of the ghost that tries to possess her.  Still, Margaret Lockwood and Barbara Mullen are great as the female leads, and surprisingly the script makes it clear that there is a danger in not listening to your wife, despite all the predictably Victorian things that are said about women throughout.

A Place of One's Own (1945)
Time: 92 minutes
Starring: James Mason, Barbara Mullen, Margaret Lockwood, Dennis Price
Director: Bernard Knowles

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Image
Virtual reality has been one of the most hyped, and one of the most disappointing, promises of technology.  While it promotes immersion into a cybernetic world what it really provides are video games with 20-year-old graphics and the occasional bruise when one accidentally hits a closet door.  In the case of The Lawnmower Man  what it is promising is that something with graphics just a little bit better than Dire Straits's "Money for Nothing" video will somehow change the world and alter humanity. It was laughable then and it is laughable now.  The only person not laughing was Stephen King, who demanded that his name be removed from all future advertising for the movie because he never wrote this.  The story, of which a short film was made in the 1980s, involves a man unwittingly hiring a Greek god to mow his lawn and, after said god creates a spectacle, paying for the landscaping with his life.  It's only a few pages and, in my opinion, it is one of King's worst
Read more

Things (1989)

Image
Most of the time when I hear a movie is the worst ever I know that is hyperbole. There are few candidates and I would even say the famous book chronicling the worst movies ever made got it wrong.  Plan 9 from Outer Space is laughably incompetent, but enjoyable.  The worst kind of films are the ones where no joy can be found in the watching experience, for reasons ranging from unlikeable characters to just sheer boredom.  A truly horrible movie is something like  Things.   This is a 1989 direct-to-video horror film from Canada, filmed on 8mm and dubbed once it was completed and the makers realized most of the sound was unusable.  Director Andrew Jordan and writer Barry J. Gillis managed to grab porn star Amber Lynn for an hour to shoot her as a news reporter just so they could put her face on the video box.  Most of the music was done by Gillis, and some of it by a local band called Familiar Strangers.  It was filmed in large part in Andrew Norman's basement, and most of the props w
Read more

The Omen (1976)

Image
A movie does not have to be high art to strike a chord with the public.  The Omen was an attempt by writer David Seltzer to make some money and get a nice trip to the UK.  It just so happened that because of The Exorcist the public was hungry for more movies involving demons and such, and adding a veneer of Catholicism didn't hurt either.  The Vatican's secrets are most likely of more interest to scholars than anyone else, but a religion doesn't hang on over the centuries without creating a bit of mystery.  In this case, Seltzer settled on the Revelation of St. John, the low-fantasy portion of the Bible and, instead of an hilariously named (albeit historically correct) demon named Pazuzu, with The Omen we get the son of Satan himself.  When Robert Thorne (Gregory Peck) is informed that his child has died he visits a priest at the hospital in Rome where his wife is coalescing.  He is given an offer too good to be true: a foundling, whose mother died in childbirth, was born
Read more