house of mystery ( 1961 film )
winchester mystery house san jose, california. home movie 8mm film october 1961 tags: winchester mystery house san jose, california
home movie
8mm film 1961
smoking holes that were once my eyes... : house of mystery (1961 )
house of mystery is a 1961 british horror film written and directed by vernon sewell (ghost ship; the blood beast terror; burke & hare) .
everybody dies. no mystery there. but why and how everyone dies. now, there' s a mystery worth solving. probably the biggest mystery there is .
mystery date... are you ready for your mystery date? choose your fate... walk through this gate ...
( 1961), directed by jack clayton, is the most elegant, evocative and frightening of them all .
later, just to remind us how things have changed a tad since 1961, certainly in the area of house prices, alan qualifies: “must be worth at least £6, 000. ”
the editor of eqmm and guests blog about suspense, short stories, and the mystery - fiction scene .
a young couple go to check out a house they' re thinking of buying. a somewhat mysterious woman tells the couple several stories of the fates that befell the house' s previous owners .
it was rumoured that murder, she wrote, which ran for 264 episodes between 1984 and 1996, was pitched as an american version of miss marple. the title is taken from murder, she said, which was the name of the 1961 adaptation of agatha christie’s miss marple mystery 4: 50 from paddington .
a young couple want to buy a lonely house which turns out to be haunted ...
house of mystery is one such film. it opens with pair of newlyweds arriving at country cottage that is for sale, where they meet a mysterious woman whom they assume to be a housekeeper (even though the house clearly hasn’t been occupied or cleaned in many years). the woman shows them around and then mentions a ghost as one possible reason why the house is unsold despite being ridiculously cheap. she then tells stories about the former occupants, which are effectively a collection of tales interwoven into one .
this was lynch' s first entire digital video film, shot on a handheld sony pd150 recorder. this three hour mystery - horror film was no different than most of lynch' s other works, although there were general outlines to follow about a doomed film project, adultery, and a possibility of pregnancy :
actor and producer bob balaban went to director robert altman and suggested doing an agatha christie - style whodunit, reviving the manor house mystery style of the late author. julian fellowes, who won the academy award for best original screenplay for the 2001 film, later described it as a “reworking of the genre” .
well, the would - be house - buyers say, what of it? people die in houses all the time .
will they be a scream... or a dud? - - mystery date, from built - in badly .
due to the nature of the film, it was open to interpretation that the whole film might have been the dream of either cobb, or someone else .
in the film' s first epilogue, the lost girl ran into smithy' s house where she happily embraced her estranged husband and child (a symbol of nikki' s own restored marriage !) .
movie titles given in upper case refer to entries in a comprehensive encyclopedia of film noir .
when i eat a york peppermint patty, i get the sensation... of communing with the spirits of the dead, in a musty old house !
with valerie bertinelli, michael gough and diana rigg, and one in 1999 with jodhi may and colin firth. film versions of the novella include the 1985 spanish film
but then the creepy lady tells them of the experiences of the young couple who bought the house a few years later, harry (kaufmann) and joan trevor (newman) .
kooky little low budget ghost story about a couple trying to buy a haunted house in a forest where a trio of folk were murdered. worth a spin .
roger ebert became film critic of the chicago sun - times in 1967. he is the only film critic with a star on hollywood walk of fame and was named honorary life member of the directors' guild of america. he won the lifetime achievement award of the screenwriters' guild, and honorary degrees from the american film institute and the university of colorado at boulder .
the screenplay by truman capote was actually based on the 1950 stage adaptation by william archibald and may be one reason henry james purists find fault with the 1961 film version. the story of a governess, miss giddens, who is entrusted with the care of two small children, flora and miles, by their uncle at a remote country estate, james' novella creates a mood of dread and menace through the increasing anxiety of miss giddens who suspects that the children may be influenced and corrupted by the malevolent spirits of the deceased former governess, miss jessel, and caretaker peter quint of bly house. the beauty of
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
in the film' s second epilogue and final scene, nikki was back home in her living room with many characters from the film. she seemed at peace .
, there is never any doubt that bly house is haunted - you see the ghosts. yet a sense of mystery and ambivalence still exists regarding the children. are they conduits for the evil spirits or truly innocent? miss giddens' obsession with discovering the truth brings a feverish intensity to the proceedings which is almost as chilling as the phantoms she seeks to exorcise .
film company in 1958. most of their output consisted of b movies, usually hour - long crime melodramas, along with a few comedies (a couple of which were julie christie' s first film roles), a few well - regarded horror films (
in america, the film was shown on tv as part of the kraft mystery theatre series, and it would subsequently be packaged as part of the edgar wallace series of films that anglo - amalgamated were producing at the same time (and which were also b - movies under an hour long). it’s currently available on dvd in the uk as part of the edgar wallace mysteries box set .
make a crappy horror film. other than that, sewell was responsible for the blandly passably
future learning and skills – giving everyone the opportunity to build a lifelong relationship with film .
scorsese has his work cut out for him in making his film. it will not be a
remake
any more than werner herzog' s
bad lieutenant
is. it will be a scorsese film. assuming he retains the broad outline, he can (a) solve the mystery, or (b) leave the mystery hanging, as i believe haneke does. can you get away with that in a hollywood film, with leonardo dicaprio already attached as georges? will the mass american movie going public let him get way with it? if anyone can, maybe scorsese can. he' ll try to be clever enough to conceal that he got away with it .
they’re met at the door by a rather creepy middle - aged woman whom they assume to be the caretaker. she starts to tell them about the house, and the
to watch this again after all those of remembering it from kraft mystery theater, i had to order a copy from a private seller in england. it wouldn' t work on us dvd, so i had to watch it on the computer .
a new governess, miss giddens (deborah kerr), was taking care of a young boy and girl for wealthy bly house estate owner and bachelor, the uncle (michael redgrave). the orphaned children were :
chaz is the publisher of urltoken and a regular contributor to the site, writing about film, festivals, politics, and life itself .
as with any david lynch film, making sense of the surrealistic images, unconventional and non - linear plot, overlapping storylines, alternate worlds, hyperlinked events, and changing identities (doubling of characters as doppelgangers) can be dubious. even the title of the film was ambiguous, not referring to a region in socal, but something more interior to the psyche. the film' s main clue was its tagline :
ariadne and fischer fell off the building as their
kick
to get back. cobb woke up again on the shores of saito' s beach house - the film' s opening scene. for cobb' s successful efforts at inception with fischer, saito made a phone call to clear away cobb' s legal troubles with immigration at lax, enter the us, be freed of his guilt, and be reunited with his children - at the film' s conclusion .
, looking like a dour, severe version of roger moore, also eventually figures in the film' s plot. born canadian, his film credit list is short but interesting. he had a bit part as a newsboy in james whale' s
during one of the first run - throughs of the script, a disturbance was heard backstage in the studio - when devon investigated, he saw nikki' s lurking double seeing herself (at a later point in the film when she entered an alleyway and a door marked axxon n). nikki ran away, into the plain suburban home of another film character named smithy (character sue' s husband in the film ?) .
they promptly moved to another house, a single - story home. soon, the supernatural events began to reoccur, e. g. , the lp record playing on the phonograph changed to
tiptoe through the tulips
and a figure was seen dancing in the living room, doors abruptly shut and opened, a riderless rocking horse rocked, and a laughing doll - child ran through the house .
director james wan and writer leigh whannell, creators of the
saw
film franchise, created this exceptionally - suspenseful horror film. it was derived from elements of typical haunted house tales, the exorcist (1973), the shining (1980), poltergeist (1982), the cell (2000), and paranormal activity (2007). the supernatural flick posited the existence of an unseen shadowy world known as
the further
( known in many such films as the
other side
), inhabited by creatures ready to possess the souls of humans .
( 1968), a poor and sometimes downright inept monster movie which was such an unpleasant experience for stars peter cushing and robert flemyng that both lambasted the film in later interviews. flemyng didn' t have many nice things to say about the film nor the director, while cushing would go on record as calling it the worst film he' d ever appeared in. the second and more distressing film as far as lost opportunities are concerned was the occult chiller
this classic science fiction film by director don siegel involved the fear of a small town doctor that many of his patients, friends and relatives were experiencing fearful paranoia and delusions that their acquaintances were imposters - and were possibly being replaced by doppelgangers. the film was an effective metaphor for the fear of communist infiltration during the cold war 1950s .
the mystery, of course, involves the identity of the person or persons sending the videos which disrupt the bourgeois routine of a parisian family. the interim solution by many viewers seems to be that pierrot, the evasive and distant son, is their source. this despite the fact that the movie also places suspicion on majid, the childhood victim of georges, and on majid' s own son .
was everything in the film a dream of her ideal and righteous life - a
blue tomorrow
? during the cheerful end credits, nina simone delivered a strong rendition of
sinnerman .
( 1977). she also did a fair amount of tv work in the 1960s, the majority now lost, unfortunate victims of the common bbc practice of
wiping
videotaped programming for re - use in the 1970s. of series still intact, she did have a recurring role as flora, the house maid, in the children' s historical adventure series ,
) is pretty blunt about its reputation :
no one' s taken it because of the ghost .
she then goes into a series of flashbacks explaining the home' s sordid history. once a farm house, orchard cottage was purchased by eccentric hermit and electronics expert / engineer mark lemming (
didn' t receive any oscar® nominations. it did garner international awards such as a best british film nod from the bafta and a palme d' or nomination at the cannes film festival. still, the film was not a box office success in the u. s. francis said ,
i' m sure jack [ clayton ] was terribly disappointed with the reaction that
the film tricks us (as it did me) with the next brief shot of a boy with a bleeding mouth. if you watch carefully, the camera pans across the room to the bleeding boy by the window. this is not georges' adult home, it' s from his childhood home. the living room in this sequence is the same as the same sequence later in the film where georges is leaving his mother' s house. the boy i believe is majid, from georges' childhood memories .
around 9. 45pm on friday, 3 december, at “styles”, their house in berkshire, christie drove off and eventually abandoned her car, lights on – containing a bag of clothes and an out - of - date driving licence – on the edge of a chalk pit, by an eerie natural spring known as the silent pool near guildford .
the film' s open - ended conclusion let the viewer decide whether trent was insane or whether what he experienced was actually reality .
timmy then took control of malcolm' s personality and strangled psychiatrist dr. malick in the front seat of the van as the vehicle lurched to the side of the road. timmy whispered the nursery rhyme (in voice - over) as the film ended :
for the remainder of the film, simon' s mind was in a confused state regarding the actual year, alarming events with his brother and wife, and his own existence .
director jane campion' s dark feminist sex film was considered a pretentious rip - off of richard brooks' looking for mr. goodbar (1977). it featured the tagline :
josh became skeptical and unsupportive of renai' s allegations (
i' m scared of this house, there' s something wrong with this place... it' s like a sickness... i can' t be alone in there anymore
); he avoided her stressful problems and privately thought she was crazy
now, then. certainly walid. probably pierrot working with him. probably not majid; his protestation of innocence completely convinced me. how did you feel? we come to the smoking gun i referred to in my review at
around
the 20: 39 point in the dvd. i was thinking specifically of the boy with blood in his mouth, and the shots on either side are also crucial. as the critic michael mirasol writes in his discussion of the film, a preceding shot
refers to the spot where georges' house is being recorded (the film' s opening shot). it has to be a pov, but from whose ?
tcm celebrates the 100th anniversary of a musical legend with three nights of programming devoted to some of leonard bernstein' s... more
was better, but you rarely get an academy award for a film that isn' t successful no matter how good your work on it .
) shows up armed with all kinds of gadgets to help. using a camera and light meter, he' s able to pick up on strange vibrations in the living room where most of the supernatural events have been taking place. a photograph of mark lemming confirms their worst fears: the dead man is the same man they' ve been spotting around the house. burdon calls in psychic mrs. bucknall (
in one way, it made her name. gillian flynn, in the book and the film that have made her name, perhaps pays silent tribute to the ingenuity of her literary heroine ...
matt zoller seitz is the editor - in - chief of rogerebert. com, tv critic for new york magazine, the creator of many video essays about film history and style, a finalist for the pulitzer prize in criticism, and the author of the wes anderson collection. his writing on film and tv has appeared in the new york times, salon, new york press, the star - ledger and dallas observer. (banner illustration by max dalton )
nikki had auditioned and received the part of sue blue, playing opposite womanizing actor devon berk as billy slide (justin theroux). the film was an adaptation of a polish gypsy tale (an adulterous love story) - with a plot about marriage and murder. it was directed by high - profile, pompous kingsley stewart (jeremy irons), with assistance from a broke freddie howard (harry dean stanton). production on the previously - cursed remake (titled vier - sieben: 47) of the film was never finished when the two leads were murdered. there were intimations that the current film would also be cursed .
the film' s last line was uhl' s memory of eisenheim saying :
everything you have seen is an illusion. it' s a trick ,
as he laughed to himself at the recollection .
the film opened with a view of a creepy old woman (philip friedman) through a window, holding a candle - a major hint, and then the title screen in pulsating, blood - red lettering .
the film is a classic ‘quota quickie’ – made to fulfil the british film quota imposed on cinemas. this rule ensured that a number of ‘full supporting features’ were cranked out to play alongside more popular american films, and while this system eventually degenerated into the release of tedious travelogues and plodding information films, for a while, it ensured that some interesting – and now, unfortunately, all too rarely seen – productions were made .
it’s through her spiritual perception of past events that we learn the story of what actually went on between stella, clive and the betrayed mark. mark was experimenting one day in the annex on his dog sally—“sally, you may not know it, but one of these days you’ll be more famous than rin tin tin”—when it became obvious to him that stella and clive were closer than they should be. thanks to having bugged one of the rooms in the main house he was able to hear them talk :
writer / director chris d.' s (chris desjardins) first feature - length film was this direct - to - dvd / video low - budget, independent horror film. the over - used plot twist in this film was also seen in carnival of souls (1962), siesta (1987), jacob' s ladder (1990), a pure formality (1994), the sixth sense (1999), the others (2001), soul survivors (2001), stay (2005), and many other films .
director spike lee' s r - rated film was a typical hollywood retreaded heist - thriller flick, specifically a tense hostage drama. it reflected elements found in serpico (1973), dog day afternoon (1975), the comedy heist film quick change (1990), and die hard: with a vengeance (1995) .
illustrator of comical pictures, watcher of too much television, erstwhile ne' er - do - well .
an unwritten code of film is that when it is important to know who did something, it must be a character in the film, unless that character can be clearly eliminated. i' ll rule out georges. that leaves almost certainly walid, probably pierrot, and to a very uncertain degree majid. the only other possibility is - - none of the above, but someone none of the characters is aware of. in the real world, that would be possible. the film itself would necessarily be unaware of this observer, and could see only the consequences. the chances of that are vanishingly slight, but with michael (
you can never know
) haneke, it can' t be completely ruled out. consider his current success with
the white ribbon .
the children did it ,
i hear. how can anyone be sure of that ?
attending hospital physician dr. newman [ revealed as mr. cable - the father of the two sons ] matter - of - factly delivered the news to simon in the film' s final line - with an added final sentence -
you died, mr. cable .
the film opened with cunning leader dalton russell (clive owen) and his gang committing the
perfect bank robbery
at the manhattan trust bank in the wall street district .
director john carpenter paid convoluted, warped homage to stephen king and h. p. lovecraft in this film that blurred the boundaries of fantasy and reality, fact and fiction, sanity and insanity, and reality and cine - reality .
that the film needed to be shot in cinemascope, a screen format he did not want to use. luckily, he had one of the best cinematographers in the business working for him - freddie francis; they had previously collaborated on
simon' s' death' in his dream of the year 2000 was mirrored or paralleled with his death in 2002. the film returned to the car accident scene - also shown in the film' s opening - when simon was being treated by emergency personnel. peter told him :
it' s your choice, simon, where you go. it' s your choice .
a time stamp clock showed the time of his death: 20: 02 .
there' s only one way to discuss such matters, and that' s by going into detail about the film itself. i hesitate to employ the hackneyed word
spoiler
here, because no one in his right mind should read this without experiencing the film. i won' t even bother with a plot synopsis. you' ve seen it .
director james mangold' s psychological thriller was similar to a popular concept of many plot twisters, a combination of fight club (1999) and agatha christie' s novel and then there were none, adapted into many film versions. in the familiar thematic plot, a group of individuals in a remote location were being killed off, one by one .
dazed, she then returned (drenched in blood) to malloy where she had handcuffed him earlier, and laid down next to him in a spooning position, as the film ended .
director roland suso richter' s enigmatic psychological thriller (direct to video / dvd) was based upon screenwriter michael cooney' s own play
point of death
- a title that gave away the film' s entire plot twist premise .
director jack clayton' s scary, supernatural - psychological horror film was adapted from henry james' novella, the turn of the screw. the setting was in the 19th century in victorian england, at a gothic, bleak english country estate .
... where i post examples of my artwork. you can find it by clicking on the picture of the
the film opened with a scene revisited much later in the film - cobb was lying on a beach where he was found delirious. he envisioned his children playing near him. he was taken by an armed guard to a beachside fortress where he was faced by wealthy, aged corporate executive saito (ken watanabe). the japanese businessman had been cobb' s latest employer .
elise' s immediate discovery was that otherworldly presences, including the blood red - faced, black - bodied demon, and other spirits or ghosts were definitely in the house to pursue dalton' s spirit. she stated :
it' s not the house that' s haunted. it' s your son .
dalton was astral - projecting himself (his spirit had left his physical body) when he traveled into a far - off dark world known as the further. but on one of his out - of - body journeys to the far - off spiritual world, he had traveled too far and become lost. elise said they must get the son back before the disembodied and tortured spirits of the dead and other malevolent entities with an
insidious agenda
took over (or possessed) his physical body (an
empty vessel
) .
in the not very surprising twist ending (the very ubiquitous death - dream revelation), jane (who believed she was alive) ventured to azami' s ex - husband' s house, where she was surrounded by many dead junkie apparitions, including all her dead acquaintances. she was spiteful when dax and others offered her a hit :
( every single horror film made between 1950 and 1990 will eventually be listed. if you notice any films missing please let me know and i' ll make sure to add them. )
i' ll be covering a few of independent artists' other interesting theatrical releases in future blog entries, and perhaps some of the merton park adaptations of wallace, as well .
( 1971), a kinky s & m; portrayal of quint and miss jessel played by marlon brando and stephanie beacham. none of them appear to have the fervent cult following of
nikki' s possessively jealous and intimidating husband piotrek (peter j. lucas) warned devon that his wife was out - of - bounds for an affair. however, as the film was being made, nikki did begin an affair with devon, in the role of her character - simultaneously, her loss of identity and its fragmentation started when she paranoically feared she would be discovered .
then, she realized he was dead (
miles? miles! miles! oh! oh, no .
). sobbing, she leaned over and kissed him, as the film ended .
in gone girl, the book and the film end uncertainly, nick seemingly stuck with a pregnant amy, who is determined to stick by his side; he may or may not stay with her for the sake of the child. of course, by then, the audience knows that amy is a psychopath and a murderess .
called the film
one of the most elegantly beautiful ghost movies ever made... the filmmakers concentrate on the virtuoso possibilities in the material, and the beauty of the images raises our terror to a higher plane than the simple fears of most ghost stories. there are great sequences (like one in a schoolroom) that work on the viewer' s imagination and remain teasingly ambiguous .
the film' s plot, told in flashback, was about insurance fraud investigator john trent (sam neill) - now a violent and delusional asylum inmate in a padded cell (
i am not insane
), who had been institutionalized after axe - murdering a reader of a popular horror novel, in the mouth of madness .
director vernon sewell had a four decade career. his other films include supernatural comedy the ghosts of berkeley square and a trio of horror films that came at the end of his career – the blood beast terror, curse of the crimson altar and burke & hare .
when the film ended with a slaughter at the asylum by monstrous creatures, trent wandered out into the world that was alarmingly empty after a bloody slaughter and civilization had seemingly been destroyed by cane' s creatures .
in this high - concept film with a well - constructed plot twist, each of the strangers that was being murdered, one - by - one (each victim had a room key placed on or near their body, with each room number connected to the order of the deaths), was not a real person. they were specific personalities of the' host' malcolm rivers (pruitt taylor vince) .
so why am i talking about the movie here? is it just because i’m a confirmed nanette newman fanboy? ahem. heaven forfend. nothing of the sort. surely. the raison d’être of this entry is that the movie’s a variant of latin quarter, which most certainly is of interest within the broadish parameters of this site .
in the persona of nikki (now dead as sue and reborn), she escaped from the trap of the film (after the shooting was completed). she entered into a nearby cinema, where she viewed on high in blue tomorrows, and some of the events of the film. she entered the theater' s projection room - and found herself in the
axxon n
apartment building. she shot and killed the phantom with a gun in a hotel hallway (as he died, his face displayed a hideous view of nikki' s own clown - face). she eventually wandered into hotel room 47 (which held the anthropomorphic rabbits in the tv sitcom), where she kissed the lost girl and freed her. nikki and the rabbits faded away .
a low - budget thriller with all the mystery and tension of a shelved thunderbirds episode. two petty crooks discover their consciences after their accomplice dies in a hit - and - run accident, and they decide to break back into the bank they have just robbed to prevent the manager and his secretary from suffocating in the safe. if the anxious expressions and banal utterances of the villains aren' t bad enough, there are the glutinous exchanges between the stuffy boss and his assistant as they find love in adversity. director vernon sewell sets up this improbable story quite neatly, but it' s hardly breathless entertainment .
the film concluded by being folded back upon itself - trent entered an abandoned movie theatre that was showing the latest movie adaptation of sutter cane' s book - and slowly changed into a crazed, mutant creature that laughed maniacally as he sat down and watched himself on the silver screen .
in the film' s frenzied conclusion, first in the hot and humid greenhouse, she kept urging and suspecting that the ghost of quint was causing miles to frighten his schoolmates with vulgar language and behavior, and was teaching him to do and say things. behind miles, she saw an apparition of quint reflected in a window. but miles denied her assertions, screamed at her, and accused her of being mad :
for nearly 90 years, the story has been reinvented on the page and screen. michael apted directed vanessa redgrave in agatha in 1979 (in which, electroconvulsive therapy given to her affects her brain). jared cade, in 1999, wrote his convincing account, claiming that she disappeared on purpose. andrew norman, in 2006, preferred the “fugue state” theory. laura thompson, a year later, agreed with christie’s daughter that it was all brought on by shock, and wrote that personally, she preferred that the mystery of the episode stay ravelled .
. all recommended it, but it was a very difficult film for me to track down for a number of years. understandable, what with no name stars, crew, or even easily - recognizable character actors to aid in marketing it, in addition to its very brief running time .
the film is based on the play l’angoisse by celia de vilyars and pierre mills, and it’s safe to say that sewell was rather fond of the story – he’d already filmed it three times, as the medium (1934), latin quarter (1945) and ghost ship (1952) .
let' s pull back to consider the whole film. much of it involves the relationship between georges (daniel auteuil) and his wife anne (juliette binoche). the tapes breed discord in their marriage. anne suspects georges, rightly, of concealing things from her. he cannot trust her with her his childhood memories. he doesn' t want them himself. the film recalls an incident during the algerian war when the bodies of hundreds of algerian immigrants were found floating in the seine. among them may have been majid' s parents, who went to paris to join a demonstration and were never seen again. this tragedy has been all but erased from the french public' s memory. it doesn' t want them .
co - star, maurice kaufmann), and as
mrs. fisher
in a few of the earliest episodes of the popular sitcom ,
writer / director neil labute' s disturbing drama (his debut film, a low - budget independent film) had as its thematic premise :
let' s hurt somebody
- a line spoken by corporate ex frat - boy chad (aaron eckhart) out to seek premeditated, retributive revenge on women, after he claimed he had broken up with steady girlfriend suzanne (emily cline) - and she had packed up, leaving him only a futon and his american gigolo poster. chad expressed his vile hatred of the fair sex :
before sue expired, she vomited blood on one of the hollywood walk of fame stars (labeled dorothy) - a powerful statement. the flame of the cigarette lighter of the woman went out (
no more blue tomorrows. you on high now, love
) - although there was a pull - back of the camera revealing it was a filmed scene .
once i read your comments i' ll know for sure, but right now i fear i' ve made an error in my reasoning, and that the film has no provable solution at all. as haneke says, no matter what you come up with, there' s a flaw. and yet nothing in this film is impossible. these are the people, it happened to them. these are the events, they took place. no explanation is satisfactory .
under hypnosis, josh entered his two story house, where he came upon a number of tormented spirits, including the doll girls (kelly devoto and corbett ruck) and a whistling ghost dad (lary crews). he retrieved dalton from the demon' s lair (located behind a red door), where dalton was found chained down, and the two awakened back in the' real world' after successfully fleeing from the fork - tongued demon and the old woman, who both had vanished .
running just 56 minutes, the film is clearly low budget stuff, but unusually entertaining with its oddly involved story that has flashbacks within flashbacks. sewell directs with efficiency – there’s no room for anything fancy in a quickie production like this. most of the action takes place in a single location with a minimal cast .
as i say, i really admire the narrative cleverness of the movie; it’s a pity this storytelling skill isn’t matched by some of the other elements—in particular, by the unbelievably dumb portrayal of a possible underpinning for psychic phenomena .
after 11 days, agatha was discovered. a musician recognised her at a spa hotel, then called the swan hydropathic in harrogate, where she was living under an assumed name, using cash from a money belt to pay for her new life: just as in the film, when suspicions are aroused in the motel by amy’s odd behaviour and a similar cash belt. christie called herself by the surname of her husband’s mistress – neele. in the film, amy dunne, played by the british actress rosamund pike, uses that same mistress’s first name – nancy .
most often, though, the reason was logistic. although the encyclopedia takes the broadest possible view of film noir, there were some movies that were either too obscure or too tangential to the theme to merit the use of precious page space: 800 + large - format pages - - nearly 700, 000 words - - may seem a lot but, when you' re trying to cover in excess of 3, 000 movies, you soon learn to appreciate the constraints .
a young house - hunting couple (ronald hines, colette wilde), driving through the english countryside, arrive at a quaint, attractive cottage, which is available for sale at an incredible bargain. when queried, the caretaker (jane hylton) casually mentions a haunting in its recent history, and relates the story of the previous residents. in flashback, we are introduced to a similarly young, married couple (maurice kaufmann, nanette newman), who encounter a ghost, when their home begins experiencing electrical problems .
the first three quarters of the film was basically a flashback to explain events occurring before the opening scene. it was narrated (in voice - over) by the dogged and determined chief police inspector walter uhl (paul giamatti) to describe why he was arresting stage performer eisenheim (edward norton) (aka eduard abramovich) .
the exciting premise of the film was that the cop, a possible murderer, might kill her next, and she was mugged on the street and roughed up. with sexual tension building, she became engaged in a torrid, risky sexual liaison with the married (but estranged) cop after a date, although she was nervous about malloy being the killer of angela (and others), thinking that he was lying about the basement - sex incident and other aspects of his life .
by john brosnan, the cameraman recalled that ,
... i had quite a lot of freedom, and i was able to influence the style of
[ the method of entering a dream state was by injection, using portable technology cases. one of the film' s major premises was that each person was required to have a totem - to help identify if one was in the dream world or in the real world. cobb' s totem was his wife' s spinning top, which would keep spinning around if he was in a dream world. ]
director michael bay' s futuristic action - adventure thriller faced major legal problems when the producers of the low - budget independent film parts: the clonus horror (1979) filed a legal suit in 2005 (settled out of court in 2006) claiming that the dreamworks / warner bros. production was an unauthorized, cloned, scene - by - scene remake. it also combined elements of thx 1138 (1971), logan' s run (1976), and blade runner (1982) .
, currently coming it at a 6. 6 / 10, is his highest rated horror film on imdb. taking that into consideration i was hoping this would rise above the rest of his work. the good news is that it does. the not - so - good news it that it doesn' t by all that much .
dr. newman :
simon, this is the 29th of july. the year is 2002. and your wife, whose name is anna, is waiting outside .
( the doctor left off four crucial additional words, revealed in the film' s ending .) (spoiler: simon had died and was not resuscitated! )
the unfaithful husband who wants a divorce. the clever, well - known wife, beloved by the public. the strange, misleading clues. a money belt stuffed full of cash. headline news. thousands of volunteers helping with the search. the sudden reappearance and the public thanks from the loving couple… and the lingering uncertainty about what really happened. that’s the plot of david fincher’s american film thriller gone girl. oddly enough, it’s also what happened to agatha christie in real life, in 1926 .
just as dunne leaves clues with people, so christie made some similar moves. she alerted readers of the times that relatives of mrs neele could reach her there .
and then in the film' s most memorable and frightening moment, he took her in his arms to kiss her, and then drew away from her unresponsive lips. in a tight closeup shot of her face, he looked into the blank, dark, expressionless and staring eyes of his fiancée, realizing with a look of utter fright, shock, and fear that she was now one of
them
- her body had been invaded and snatched by the clones. he knew instantly that this was not becky, his sweetheart of a moment ago, but a treacherous imposter and victim. she confirmed the truth, and traitorously screamed to the pod - people searchers :
, has been adapted countless times for the stage, television, cinema and even as a ballet, an opera (by benjamin britten in 1954) and a graphic novel (by guido crepax in 1989). among the many film versions, however, most agree that
the specter of mark (peter dyneley) emerges from a shadowy corner ...
necessarily influenced these other films - - doubtful, since it was very low - profile - - but it is kind of neat that it was ahead of the curve .
finding no ordinary causes for either the faulty power, or the silent, mysterious man they think they see in their home, they end up enlisting the aid of a parapsychologist (colin gordon), who overcomes their initial skepticism with rational - sounding scientific explanations, rather than the mystical hokum they were expecting. eventually, he brings in a genuine psychic (molly urquhart), in an attempt to solve the mystery of the apparition. this leads to a further flashback, showing the ghost to be a rather brilliant electrical engineer (peter dyneley), embroiled in research in his backyard workshop, whose adulterous wife schemes with her lover to murder him in a staged' accident'... but things don' t quite go according to plan ...
according to jared cade, this was an alibi for her amnesia, “two years previously she had written a book in which a woman fakes amnesia”, he says. she sent that letter to her brother - in - law, saying she was going on holiday to yorkshire; the local chief constable heard that she “feared for her life”. the marriage had become a psychodrama; after 12 years (and one child), archie had told her he was in love with someone else. after she vanished, he did spend the weekend with friends including the mystery woman, who naturally interested the police .
and the casting of deborah kerr as miss giddens came about .
deborah had one film to do for twentieth century [ fox ], and so did i: that was the one we both wanted to do and which we had discussed when we met the previous year. i had admired her work in two films with that very underrated actor, robert mitchum -
( 1978) - - produced by her first husband, euan lloyd. unfortunately, she died of a heart attack a year later, at the untimely age of 51 .
had a ten - year stretch of small parts on the big and small screens, from the early 1950s to the early 1960s. she' s in the same segment of
john grant, a scot by birth but a long - term inmate of new jersey, is the author of some sixty books. his nonfiction has included the encyclopedia of walt disney’s animated characters, masters of animation, three pocket books on cinema (animated movies, sci - fi movies, and noir movies), the encyclopedia of fantasy (with john clute), and a series of books on the misuse and misunderstanding of science, begun with discarded science and continued most recently with denying science; for his writings on popular science he has been described by gregory frost as “the living heir to martin gardner. ”
just before a movie audition for a remake of a film titled on high in blue tomorrows, aging yet privileged la actress nikki grace (laura dern), hoping for a comeback role, was visited in her luxury home by a heavily - accented polish neighbor lady (grace zabriskie). she related two old world folktales about an evil and lost girl. like a bizarre flash - forward, nikki was abruptly told that there was a
brutal f - - king murder
in the film' s plot, and prophetically told she would get the part in the film :
i definitely hear that you have it... actions do have consequences and yet there is the magic .
nikki also was told some hinted foreshadowings about things being non - linear :
i can' t seem to remember if it' s today, two days from now, or yesterday ,
and
evil was born .
( 1933), but was more involved in stage work and a stretch as an raf pilot in world war ii, followed by some parts on live television in the u. s. he got his next chance in film with a bit in michael powell and emeric pressburger' s
a few weeks later, after they returned to their hometown, a sickened howard visited chad at about 1 am, and learned that chad had no regrets about his actions, and that girlfriend suzanne had never left him (
she never left. she' s always been right there
) - the film' s plot twist. he boldly and amorally declared why he had devised the game :
because i could .
it seemed that all along, the motivation of the venomous and controlling chad was a subtle hatred of the submissive and vulnerable howard, who was appointed ineffectual team leader (in retrospect, chad had cleverly sabotaged howard' s work throughout the film). when howard left the building, he vomited on the staircase .
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in the end, no money was stolen, the guns the robbers used were fake toys, and an execution of one hostage had been staged. the only items disturbed in the bank were the contents of the safety deposit box. all of the hostages were released (with three of the gang members joining them), while russell stayed behind to hide .
my throat' s parched... i just want a glass of water
an interview with terry gilliam, director of
the man who killed don quixote .
the next revelation was that josh had experienced
night terrors
and
awful fits of pure fear
when he was eight years old. he had been terrorized, like his son, by an evil spirit - in the guise of an old woman (the one that opened the film). a series of photographs from his boyhood showed the old woman getting closer and closer to him. he was also a
gifted traveler
in his childhood with the ability to venture out of his physical body during a dream state. he had handed down astral - projection abilities to his son. it was recommended that josh, the only one capable of rescuing dalton' s soul, rediscover his lost abilities and enter
the further .
the film' s main plot was about the murder of a prominent and wealthy industrialist from chicago named philip colbert (uncredited jack teter) who was found beaten to death (a massive head wound) in a town alleyway. colbert had come to sparta from the north to build a new factory. his surviving widow leslie (lee grant) insisted that detective tibbs stay on the case to find her husband' s killer, causing ripples of racism in the small town.
house of mystery is a 1961 british supernatural mystery film . it was based on a play director vernon sewell had filmed three times before . it was known in germany as das landhaus des dr. lemming ( " the country house of dr. lemming " ) , and because of its compact running time , aired in the u.s. as an episode of the tv series " kraft mystery theatre " . 
house of mystery is a 1961 british supernatural mystery film. it was based on a play director vernon sewell had filmed three times before. it was known in germany as das landhaus des dr. lemming (" the country house of dr. lemming "), and because of its compact running time, aired in the u.s. as an episode of the tv series " kraft mystery theatre ".
house of mystery is a 1961 british supernatural mystery film. it was based on a play director vernon sewell had filmed three times before. it was known in germany as das landhaus des dr. lemming (" the country house of dr. lemming "), and because of its compact running time, aired in the u.s. as an episode of the tv series " kraft mystery theatre ".