Finding Distant Trumpet (also reviewed) to be a plodding mess, I began searching on Talking Pictures free catch-up site for other, hopefully better movies from film maker Terence Fisher. Discovering one pre-Hammer Horror title by Fisher on the site, I got set to go home.
View on the film:
Highlighted in the splendid book Terence Fisher Master of Gothic Cinema by Tony Dalton that after his contract ended once Gainsborough Pictures was sold to Rank, this film was the first, of what was to become a long period of him working for independent studios, directing auteur Terence Fisher surrounds the family manor house with a Gothic Thriller atmosphere, via Fisher & The Man In The Back Seat (1961-also reviewed) cinematographer Reginald H. Wyer walking through the long shadows and thick clouds of smoke (a major recurring motif in Fisher's works) and an excellent ominous score from The Night My Number Came Up (1955-also reviewed) composer Malcolm Arnold, towards ultra-stylized first-person shots capturing Barbara getting in the cross-hairs of those who don't want her to uncover the household secret.
Fisher skillfully explores the house with proto- jump scare push-ins and zoom-ins on hands (which cast long shadows on the walls) bursting out of the darkness to strangle Barbara and anyone feared to be offering clues,until Fisher gloriously sinks the hands, and the household, into wide-shots covering every inch of the surrounding marshes.
Bringing Barbara back home for a reading of the will with her family, the screenplay by Francis Edge (who also edited the film), Ian Stuart Black and John Temple-Smith get the knives out for Barbara, (played by Rona Anderson, who wonderfully expresses the lingering doubt Barbara has over the "suicide" it is claimed by the family that her dad committed) by drawing family members, household servants and friends (played by a terrific ensemble cast of Peter Jones,Stanley Baker and Alan Wheatley) as people who would very much like Barbara to take the claimed suicide of her dad at face value, leading to the writers lining the dark walls of the manor house with tense underworld crime dealings taking place under the upper-crust facade, which Barbara shines a light on, to discover the dangers at home.
View on the film:
Highlighted in the splendid book Terence Fisher Master of Gothic Cinema by Tony Dalton that after his contract ended once Gainsborough Pictures was sold to Rank, this film was the first, of what was to become a long period of him working for independent studios, directing auteur Terence Fisher surrounds the family manor house with a Gothic Thriller atmosphere, via Fisher & The Man In The Back Seat (1961-also reviewed) cinematographer Reginald H. Wyer walking through the long shadows and thick clouds of smoke (a major recurring motif in Fisher's works) and an excellent ominous score from The Night My Number Came Up (1955-also reviewed) composer Malcolm Arnold, towards ultra-stylized first-person shots capturing Barbara getting in the cross-hairs of those who don't want her to uncover the household secret.
Fisher skillfully explores the house with proto- jump scare push-ins and zoom-ins on hands (which cast long shadows on the walls) bursting out of the darkness to strangle Barbara and anyone feared to be offering clues,until Fisher gloriously sinks the hands, and the household, into wide-shots covering every inch of the surrounding marshes.
Bringing Barbara back home for a reading of the will with her family, the screenplay by Francis Edge (who also edited the film), Ian Stuart Black and John Temple-Smith get the knives out for Barbara, (played by Rona Anderson, who wonderfully expresses the lingering doubt Barbara has over the "suicide" it is claimed by the family that her dad committed) by drawing family members, household servants and friends (played by a terrific ensemble cast of Peter Jones,Stanley Baker and Alan Wheatley) as people who would very much like Barbara to take the claimed suicide of her dad at face value, leading to the writers lining the dark walls of the manor house with tense underworld crime dealings taking place under the upper-crust facade, which Barbara shines a light on, to discover the dangers at home.