The first and best remembered British portmanteau film was
made at Ealing Studios, it was their first foray into the ‘horror genre’
following WW2, during which horror films had been banned from production in
Britain. In 1945 Ealing was not known for ‘horror’ but more for war films and
documentaries. Dead of Night (1945) produced by Michael Balcon was his first experiment in getting ready for films following the war
and was held up as a showcase for the people Ealing had working for them at
this time. The film was in the tradition of English ghost stories more than
real horror, which was normally left to the USA to make until Hammer started
producing them in the mid 1950’s.
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| Walter Craig arrives at Pilgrim Farm. |
Dead of Night is a collection of supernatural, or if you refer,
ghost stories linked together with a cunningly circular narrative. The linking
or framing story involves an Architect, Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) who is
invited to Pilgrim Farm by its owner Eliot Foley (Roland Culver) to prepare
drawings for a revamp of the property. From the moment he arrives he gets a
sense of déjà vu telling the other five guests that the country house seems
strangely familiar and that he recognises all the people there from a recurring
nightmare! Each one of them goes on to relate their own tale of nightmarish
proportions.
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| The guests assemble to tell their stories. |
The first is the Hearse
Driver, directed by Basil Dearden, whose films have included Pool of London (1951), Violent Playground (1958), Sapphire (1959), Victim (1961) and A Place to Go (1963) and based on a
short story by E F Benson first published in 1906. A racing driver, Hugh Granger (Anthony Baird) suffers a
serious accident. Opening the curtains of his hospital room, he is surprised to
see daylight and, in the street below, a hearse. The driver looks up at him and
smiles, saying "room for one more inside." Granger's doctor reassures
him that it was a delusion brought on by the accident, and he recovers well.
Leaving the hospital, however, he is about to board a bus when the conductor,
who has the face of the hearse driver, turns to him, saying "room for one
more inside." Unnerved, Granger lets the bus go. Further down the road,
the bus crashes, killing all the passengers.
The next
story, Christmas Party, directed by
Alberto Cavalcanti, is narrated by the youngest member of the group Sally
O’Hara (Sally Ann Howes). At a friend's
Christmas party, she takes part in a game of 'sardines' - a version of hide and seek. But
one boy soon finds her. When the boy tries to kiss her, Sally runs into a side
room. She comes upon a small child, Francis, sobbing. He tells her his
half-sister wants to kill him. She comforts him, singing him to sleep.
Re-joining the others, she discovers that Francis was the ghost of the murdered
boy who died at the hands of his sister in 1860.
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| Sally O'Hara relates the Christmas Tale. |
The third
sequence directed by Robert Hamer, who was responsible for directing one of
British best film’s It Always Rains on
Sunday (1947), is
a story written by John Baines called Haunted
Mirror. Houseguest Joan Cortland (Googie Withers) buys her fiancé, Peter,
an antique mirror for his birthday. But one evening Peter sees another room reflected
in the mirror. The visions continue and he fears he is going mad. Joan forces
Peter to confront the mirror with her, but this time it is even worse: Peter
sees only the other room, an ornate bedroom with a log fire and four-poster bed
- but no Joan. With Joan's help, Peter regains control and sees the room as
normal. The wedding goes ahead and Peter loses his fear of the mirror. Visiting
her mother in Chichester, Joan visits the antique shop where she bought the
mirror, and learns its history. It belonged to a wealthy man, crippled in a
riding accident, who became insanely jealous of his wife and finally strangled
her, before slitting his throat in front of the mirror. Joan returns home to
find Peter angry; he accuses her of having an affair. He tries to strangle her.
In desperation, Joan smashes the mirror, breaking the spell.
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| The tale of the Haunted Mirror |
Golf
obsessed George and Larry, played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, better
known as ‘Charters and Caldicott’ who appeared as two cricket mad Englishman in
several films from 1938 -1949, are bitter rivals on the green but the best of
friends off it, that is until Mary comes between them. The Golfing Story is directed by Charles Crichton, whose body of work
included Hue and Cry (1947), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), Hunted (1952) and A Fish Called Wanda (1988), and is very loosely based on a story by
H G Wells, this penultimate tale is told by the farm owner Eliot Foley. When
Mary refuses to choose between the two men they decide to play a round, the
loser agreeing to disappear for good. At the final hole, George wins, but only
by cheating. Larry accepts defeat and, to George's amazement, walks calmly into
the lake to his death. Larry returns as a ghost, threatening to haunt George
forever, unless he gives up Mary. George reluctantly agrees but Larry has
forgotten the code to return to Heaven. He is still trying to remember it on
George's wedding night, as Mary waits upstairs. Desperate, George tries to help
find the code but ends up disappearing himself. Larry gratefully takes his
place.
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| The golf obsessed George and Larry. |
The final
sequence is the most memorable. Directed by Albert Cavalcanti and again has an
original story written by John Baines. Ventriloquists
Dummy is narrated by the Psychiatrist Dr van Straaten who tells a story
about one of his patents. Maxwell Frere is a ventriloquist who entertains
audiences with a very talkative and cheeky dummy called Hugo Fitch and van
Straaten describes the relationship between master and dummy that makes you
question the sanity of the pair!
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| The man with true fear in his eyes! |
At the end
of each sequence the story diverts back to Walter Craig and Pilgrim Farm
when we learn more about his reoccurring nightmare. Until the very last scene
and with the credits rolling we learn our stories ultimate outcome! Basically a chamber story about a group of
people collected in a large English country house telling stories of what could
be described as weird occurrences but it has an ingenious way of linking all
the stories together with Dearden’s framing narrative which holds the whole
film together.
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| The most disturbing of the stories. |
As for each individual story they do vary. The Christmas Story being the most insignificant
of the five and the Golfing Story is
the least effective, an absurd comedy that is a parody of English emotions. The Hearse Driver is a chilling tale
that reminds us of the nearness of death. The best two are the disturbing Haunted Mirror that has a stylish plot
that would be repeated in one way or another in many films. But the best one, and most memorable, is the
creepy unnerving Ventriloquists Dummy where Michael Redgrave gives the best performance of any of
the actors involved as the demented ventriloquist who looses his grip on
reality, a man with true fear in his eyes. The only story that is not quite in
the Victorian tradition of supernatural tales, more urban and psychologically
layered than the others. Again it’s a plot that will be reprised in a great
many narratives that involve mystery and horror themes. Overall it
manages to give us a ‘total’ movie and not just five linking stories. As it
turned out this film was the template for all subsequent horror anthology
movies. Truly classic British cinema.
