XhcnoirX
Schoolteachers Joyce Howard and Tucker McGuire are off to the Yorkshire moors for a holiday, the same moors where a former colleague disappeared a year earlier. When they get caught up in a storm, they find shelter in the secluded mansion of James Mason. Mason's an acrimonious and unstable man, and despite multiple warnings from him, his housekeeper Mary Clare, and a possible link between Mason and the missing teacher, she falls for him and decides to stay around for a while. But then she finds a skeleton in a locked room (literally), with a necklace that she recognizes as the missing teacher's...Also known as Terror House and Moonlight Madness, this movie combines elements from 30 mysteries, Gothic/victorian drama's and even a bit of early/proto film noir. Mason ('Odd Man Out') was still quite young but already able to carry a movie, and gives a solid performance. Howard ('They Met In The Dark') is also good, stuffy at first but more radiant once she takes a romantic interest in Mason. There is also some nice atmospheric cinematography by Gunther Krampf ('Nosferatu') inside the mansion and on the foggy moors. The directing by Leslie Arliss ('The Wicked Lady') is competent enough, but his screenplay is a bit too slow, and he added some unnecessary and jarring comic relief in the middle. The twist is not too surprising, the ending is pretty good tho. An enjoyable movie, but it could've been much better. 6+/10
preppy-3
A very young James Mason plays a mysterious man who may know something about a young girls disappearance. Her friends try to find out what he knows.I caught this on a cable TV station in the early 1980s. Back then there were a number of small cable stations starting up and they put on anything that they could get cheaply. The print I saw on this station was dreadful--VERY faded with some scenes so dark you could barely make out anything. The sound wasn't much better. Still I did like it and the final revelation of the killer (and the look on their face) chilled me. Also Mason was very good in an early role and it was a delight seeing him so young and full of energy.This is a pretty obscure little film but worth seeing if you get the chance.
JohnHowardReid
An old-fashioned thriller that is given first class treatment here. True, the ingénue is a bit inadequate, but the rest of the players are fine, and it all gravitates to a really stunning climax. Director Arliss punches the action spots across with considerable verve, partly by using very effective camera angles and partly by drawing superb performances from most of the players, especially James Mason, Wilfred Lawson and Mary Clare. The screenplay is a model of tautness and compression without seeming so. And as noted above, all the details come together with an amazing impact at the knock-out climax. The music score by Charles Williams is also a standout, as is the superlative photography by none other than the daring Gunther Krampf and the atmospheric art direction of Duncan Sutherland.
HoldMyEarrings
Of all the movies I love, none has had a wider ranging impact than this one. I saw it on late night TV when I was 9, Halloween night, at a sleepover where everyone else was sleeping. I had nothing to do and couldn't figure out how to change the channel on the TV, so I was sitting there grumpily watching something random when this... strange movie came on. It was in black and white, but the people in it were beautiful, as were the clothes, the sets, everything. I was transfixed. I told my mother about this movie rapturously, and when it came on again a couple of years later she woke me at 2:00 in the morning so we could watch it together (my mother understands what it is to love a film). For many years Stephen was my tortured masculine ideal, and I married a man who definitely fits the James Mason physical type. Luckily, he has a sunny temperament and a stronger chin, so I feel like I got the best of both worlds! This movie also led me into the genre of Gothic literature, which was a major component of my reading life for a long time, and I still enjoy. Thank you to the people who made this film with love. They'll never know what it's meant to me.
AD
