If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

A different way of telling a story

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

In October 1945, the horror anthology film "Dead of Night" was released in England, and to this day, almost 75 years later, it remains one of the scariest pictures ever to come out of that country. But "Dead of Night" was hardly the first shuddery cinematic exercise to be released there that year. Some five months earlier, in May '45, a smaller and admittedly less frightening cinematic offering had been released to the public, and that film was "A Place of One's Own," based on the Osbert Sitwell novel of 1940. A subdued and only intermittently scary ghost story, the film yet offers the viewer of today a beautifully produced and supremely well acted 90 minutes, highlighted by some beautiful period decor and a literate script. Though little discussed in recent years, the picture surely remains ripe for modern-day reappraisal by the discriminating viewer.In the film, the viewer meets the advanced-in-years Henry Smedhurst, played by the 36-year-old James Mason, who, by dint of his great craft and some effective makeup work, manages to convince as a man a good 20 years older. Smedhurst had been a draper in Leeds for the previous 40 years, and is now about to retire. He and his wife, Emily (American actress Barbara Mullen...although nobody would ever suspect her country of birth, given the oh-so convincing Scottish accent that she sports here), decide to buy the abandoned Bellingham House in Newborough. The old place had been unoccupied, coincidentally enough, since 1860--40 years earlier--when its previous occupant, the young Elizabeth Harkness, had died under mysterious circumstances. All seems to go well as the Smedhursts settle in, until strange noises are heard issuing from the home's "speaking tube," as well as faint voices asking for one "Dr. Marsham." And when Emily hires a young woman named Annette Allenby (the hugely popular English actress Margaret Lockwood) to be her companion, even stranger things begin to transpire. Annette is soon seen to evince abilities on the piano that she never had before; she orders the gardener to dig in the garden for a locket and later has no memory of having done so; and, most distressingly, she even begins to speak in another's voice, telling of a 40-year-old tragedy in that same house. The viewer of course immediately realizes that poor Annette is being possessed by the spirit of the late Elizabeth, and while Emily is quick to catch on, Smedhurst himself is harder to convince. Annette's fiance, the kindly Dr. Selbie (Dennis Price, here in one of his earliest roles, and a good four years prior to his wonderful turn in "Kind Hearts and Coronets"), is at a loss to help the woman as she sinks into torpor and increasing debility, until Smedhurst himself is finally convinced of the supernatural nature of recent events, and decides to take action, as the history of four decades earlier threatens to repeat itself....While never as scary as "Dead of Night" would prove to be, "A Place of One's Own" yet manages to deliver one or two scenes that should just manage to send a chill down the spines of modern-day viewers. In the first and perhaps most impressive in the entire film, Annette awakens in the middle of the night, and walks trancelike down the stairs of Bellingham House, while the strains of Chopin's "Prelude in E Minor, Op. 28, Number 4" (perhaps the most effective use of this classical piece in film history, at least until Bobby Dupea played the same melody 25 years later in "Five Easy Pieces") are heard being played by someone or something on the piano downstairs, and creepy voices whisper in the background. In this extended sequence, the camera follows Annette down the intricate stairway (it is a most impressive piece of work here by cinematographer Stephen Dade) and into the piano room. In the second shuddery scene, Dr. Marsham himself, the suitor of Elizabeth Harkness four decades earlier, arrives at the house in the, um, dead of night, and we see him, from behind and at a discreet distance, ascend those same stairs to give assistance in Annette's sickroom. Marsham is played by the great Ernest Thesiger, here in his first outright horror film since he had essayed the memorable role of Dr. Pretorius in the classic "Bride of Frankenstein," a full 10 years before. Again, this scene is a quiet one, and the shudders elicited are small ones. This is a film that never goes for big scares or startling shocks, but rather a slow and understated accretion of sinister unease. Very much in the tradition of British quality, the film has been expertly helmed by director Bernard Knowles, who had earlier served as DOP for no fewer than five of Alfred Hitchcock's U.K. classics. The script, by Brock Williams, is a pleasing one, and as I have mentioned, the acting, down to the smallest bit parts (such as pretty Dulcie Gray as the flighty maid Sarah), is, unsurprisingly, impeccable; Mason, in particular, is a wonder. Although the film's resolution may prove a little underwhelming for the casual viewer, for all those who love an effective ghost story well told, "A Place of One's Own" should surely fit the bill. More than highly recommended....

James Mason and Margaret Lockwood star in this British film, A Place of One's Own. It centers on a somewhat elderly couple who have bought a new house to live in for their retirement years. They talk throughout the film about always wanting a place of their own. But then the wife hires a companion. It seems also that James bought the house for a really cheap price, due to the fact the house had been on the market for 40 years. No one wanted to live there, because the gossipers say it's haunted by an invalid daughter who had died there. Of course, signs show that it may be true and she seems to have attached herself to the young companion. What begins as a well-made curious little movie comes across, oddly enough, as very subdued and maybe too much so. Instead of going for obvious shock value and a splashy treatment, this film centers on lost love and two old souls wanting to be together in the afterlife. The film is so subdued and low-key that it has a sleep-inducing effect. The fact that the people here speak so proper and British and old doesn't help either. A lot of films seem interesting at the time and later the viewer decides it wasn't that great. This falls in the opposite category. As it goes on in what feels like a no-win situation and ultimately unsatisfying (or aggravating) throughout the film, the ending gives it a good resolution and makes the viewer vindicated for sticking with it. If you can make it through the film, given the slow-talking people, I think you will like it on the whole, but altogether it wasn't as grand as I thought it was going to be, given the presence of James Mason.

Other comments have mentioned that this story of ghosts, possession and romance is slow. And it does have its longueurs. I don't know how much time is spent on establishing the fact that Lockwood, who is like a daughter to the elderly couple, Mason and Mullen, is possessed by the spirit of an invalid who died in the house forty years ago. It's wasted time. The film seems slow not because it's intrinsically dull but because it's too long. It might have made a perfect episode of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour." James Mason is at his best being suave or moody. Here, he's crippled by an abundance of old-age make up and an attempt at some kind of exotic English dialect. He's a well-off, no-nonsense retired businessman who unwittingly buys a haunted house, and he harumphs around denying that anything strange is going on, even when something strange is going on. His more sensitive wife realizes something is up, but not until the end does Mason come around, and even then he opts for straightforward first-order change.As the possessed chief factotum, Margaret Lockwood is okay but looks a bit older and, more important, stronger than she did in "The Lady Vanishes." She's supposed to be wasting away, calling out for "Doctor Marsham", the doc who could have saved the life of the now-departed invalid. The problem is that Marsham moved away years ago and no one has any idea where he is, or if he's still alive. Her fiancé, the young and handsome doctor, Dennis Price, doesn't believe in ghosts and can do nothing to help her.At the end, the spectral Dr. Marsham shows up and gets the job done, but he's always in shadow and photographed from behind, so it's difficult to tell that he's the celebrated character actor, Ernest Thesinger, the mad scientist who had a penchant for shrinking kings and queens in "The Bride of Frankenstein." The tale takes place around the turn of the century, during the Boer War, and it's interesting to observe the details of a proper middle-class English country life -- the exchange of visiting cards, the lawn parties at which everyone is dressed up as if it were Easter Sunday. The cups of tea. The little glass of port after dinner.On the whole, if you liked, say, "The Uninvited" or the sentimental but amusing "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir," you'll probably enjoy this.

I should caution anyone that may be slightly impatient that you'll have to stick with this one for awhile before the story kicks into gear. Over the course of the first forty minutes or so it's a story focused on two elderly people and their young helper who meets a boy she falls in love with. This is all enjoyable enough, if a bit dull, depending on one's tolerance for such stories in older films. There's a sprinkling of mysterious goings-on building to what's to come later, but just a sprinkling. This isn't to discourage anyone from trying the movie. I just want to prepare you to view this when you aren't watching a clock. The pace does pick up midway through and here's where the mystery elements of the film really come into play. All of the actors are good, particularly Margaret Lockwood. As others have pointed out, James Mason and Barbara Mullen are playing characters twice their age for some inexplicable reason. But they do well, with the usual "old people are kind and sweet and amusingly cantankerous" trope that permeated movies of the time. Ernest Thesiger has what amounts to a brief cameo (where he's dubbed, oddly). The role is important to the plot but given how little of his face you see, the part really could have been played by anybody. One more note: this is in no way a scary film. Some of the characters in the story may become frightened or bewildered but to the audience this is more of a mystery film with some supernatural overtones. This is worth pointing out for those expecting something akin to The Innocents or The Haunting. Still, it's a good but not great mystery film with some nice heart-warming humor and sentimentalism. Added points if you like British films of the period where everyone speaks and acts quite properly, except for the servants who add touches of color and comedy relief.