Favorite Films (lists up to participating site members)

[Robert]

One of the creepiest films I've seen is The Haunting (1963). I can't say that I go for the slasher, violent sort of stuff. For instance, in any dramatization of M.R. James's short story "Lost Hearts," I don't want to see the heart being ripped out at the end. It's unpleasant and adds nothing to the original story.

[Mayerling]

Creepy or Paranormal Films:

The Wicker Man (the original one, with Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward)

Eye of the Devil (1966) - This film is often, unjustly overlooked. It has a cast of real pros in it: David Niven, Deborah Kerr, Donald Pleasance, Emlyn Williams, John Le Mesurier, Edward Mulhare). Set in the French vineyard countryside, it shows a dark underside highly reminiscent of "The Wicker Man" but this film was made first.

The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1947) - with Edward G. Robinson, Gail Patrick, John Lund, William Demerest, Jerome Cowan, George Alexander. Rocky Sullivan on this thread loves the Robinson "tough guy" parts as a gangster, like "Little Caesar", but Robinson was good in most parts. Here, based on a story by "William Irish"/Cornell Woolrich, Robinson is one of his regular men who discovers he has an unwanted power. Heading a vaudeville act where he is a fake mentalist he finds out he actually can tell the future. Unfortunately the price of this is it is always news involving death - even when it is good news. When the daughter of his former business partner is left the heiress to an oil fortune, Robinson has visions of great danger facing her, and contacts her and her boy-friend (Lund) to warn her. But Detective Demerest has a sharp suspicion here about what Robinson is possibly trying to do - you see, Cowan's private airplane was tampered with. Woolrich's story is marvelous, see-sawing back and forth between the implausible occult and the plausible, ugly reality. The conclusion of this ultimately tragic film makes me think of the end of several Shakespearean tragedies.

Three Strangers (1946) - the greatest of the trio of films co-starring Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet, here joined by Geraldine Fitzgerald (with the great name "Crystal Shackelford" - it just drips venomous femme fatale). Fitzgerald is a believer in the occult, and worships the Chinese God of fate, and she has gone out of her way to find two strangers to share fate with her - Lorre, an impish ne'er-do-well, and Greenstreet, an APPARENTLY proper British solicitor. She will join with them, if they agree, in the purchase of a sweepstake ticket for the winner of the Grand National. They agree, although Fitzgerald (when buying the ticket) only puts her name down on it. The film's script was written by John Huston, in the wake of his successful teaming of Greenstreet and Lorre in supporting parts in the film, "The Maltese Falcon". But Huston is not the director (I believe it's Jean Negulesco). The screenplay is about the vagaries of fate, as all three of its leads are buffeted about by it until the climax. One curious thing I have noticed about this fine film - most viewers consider the three stars as the "Three Strangers", and this is understandable. What many people don't notice is the frequent smaller triangles of interrelated characters in the film, such as Fitzgerald, her estranged husband (Alan Napier), and the girl he wants to marry. It is a wonderful film, not shown enough, and gave it's leads and the supporting cast terrific moments to act.

Jeff

[lynn cates]

Daniels

Hello Jeff. Thanks.

Ah! William Daniels. Great actor. Think he's still alive and married to same spouse?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

O'Connor

Hello Robert. I'm with you on "The Haunting."

What of John O'Connor's version of "Lost Hearts"--about 1973?

Cheers.
LC

[Rosella]

I don't really go for slasher movies. I did enjoy The Others (2001) with Nicole Kidman. I've never been able to watch 'The Blair Witch Project' all the way through since the first time I saw it in 1999.
I thought The Ring (2002) was very good and The Orphanage (2007) was excellent. There is apparently a new film in the offing, called, in English 'Goodnight Mommy,' which looks promising. I think it's a French or German production.

[Robert]

Hi Lynn

There was a BBC version of 'Lost Hearts' around that time. Is that the one?

The one that really sticks in my mind is the "Mystery and Imagination" version a few years before. I remember the heart being dumped in the brazier at the end.

Jeff, re precognition, didn't Claude Rains do one as well?

[Mayerling]

Hello Jeff. Thanks.

Ah! William Daniels. Great actor. Think he's still alive and married to same spouse?

Cheers.
LC

Hi LC,

I have liked Daniels ever since I first really watched him as "John Adams" in the film "1776". His performance as "Dr. Craig", the sarcastic and rude heart surgeon in "St. Elsewhere" cemented my enjoyment of him. Since then I look around for his film and television appearances (like his pompous family man with the bratty daughter in the film "Two For the Road").

His wife's first name is "Bonnie" I believe - she is still married to him, and she played "Mrs. Craig" on "St. Elsewhere".*

*"St. Elsewhere" had a great many in-jokes and cultural references in it regarding it's cast members. In one episode the Craigs are on vacation and not in Boston but in Philadelphia, and Daniels starts singing (while they are out strolling on a street), "It's hot as hell in Philadelphia!" from "1776".

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Hi Lynn

There was a BBC version of 'Lost Hearts' around that time. Is that the one?

The one that really sticks in my mind is the "Mystery and Imagination" version a few years before. I remember the heart being dumped in the brazier at the end.

Jeff, re precognition, didn't Claude Rains do one as well?

Hi Robert,

The film (a good one) that Rains made in 1935 is "The Clairvoyant" (sometimes sold in bad VCR versions as "The Evil Mind", which totally misses the story). Like Robinson he is a performer in a mind reading act (though in England's music halls), when he starts finding that under certain conditions he can predict the future - but, interestingly enough, he needs his own medium as a go-between. This turns out to be a young socialite, leading to some friction between Rains and his wife.

Another frequently forgotten (and creepy) occult film is "The Uninvited" with Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Gail Patrick, Donald Crisp, and Alan Napier. Milland, a young composer, moves into a cottage/house on a cliff that he buys from Crisp, with his sister (Hussey). Crisp's granddaughter (Patrick) is frequently drawn back to the house, and when she comes she narrowly escapes injuries or death there - but she is still drawn back. Milland discovers (with the help of Napier - the local doctor) that the house has a sinister tragedy in it's background dealing with Crisp's daughter's death, and her husband and a maid. Well done with special effects of ghost like smokiness and the scent of mimosa (a clue, which unfortunately we cannot smell), the film also has a rare film role for Cornelia Otis Skinner, daughter of the stage star from the first third of the 20th Century, as a sinister, "efficient" head of an insane asylum who also has a key to the mystery. Skinner does well in her "Mrs. Danvers" type role, and there is a real suggestion of a lesbian relationship in her performance.

Jeff

[Robert]

Thanks Jeff.

I've just remembered there was a film that I only saw a few minutes of, for some reason. I thought it quite spooky at the time and through Googling I've identified it as The Changeling.

[RockySullivan]

The scariest movie to me is Dracula. The scene when he is controlling his goon is really scary and when it's on tv late at night when the moon is bright this really gives me creeps. The thing that makes it so scary is the lack of music...it's so real. Scores completely ruined film...they are terrible...it's why the early 30s flicks are so great...they sound real...once the scores came in movies started sucking...it's just to silly with them like a cartoon

[RockySullivan]

Inferno or Dante's inferno the spencer tracy movie is another scary one

[Paddy Goose]

Breaker Morant

That was very good.

But I must admit I don't normally like courtroom drama movies at all. _______________

[GUT]

That was very good.

But I must admit I don't normally like courtroom drama movies at all. _______________

Courtrooms often are a drama.

[lynn cates]

B B C

Hello Robert. Thanks.

Yes, it was the BBC version.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Daniels

Hello Jeff. Thanks.

He also played a police lieutenant on a Kolchak episode. Was he not also the voice of the talking car?

Cheers.
LC