"Dead of Night" (1945)

Full of energy & enthusiasm for my New Year resolution to read more, I grabbed the latest book by Kate Summerscale ("The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story") that didn't exactly left me breathless so far but it mentioned something really interesting: in her previous book, Summerscale was writing about a murder in Victorian England and this same murder was vaguely mentioned as a part of influential horror omnibus "Dead of Night". To my biggest delight, I recognised the movie, it was a delight of my childhood and before you know it, I started re-watching it again.

It is such an interesting experience to return to something after almost a lifetime - kind of meeting an old lover after many years - I have seen "Dead of Night" as a kid and back than it left a huge impression on me. Actually that is not completely true - it is an omnibus of paranormal stories, as told in a parlour by a group of polite people drinking their tea in a set up that would made Agatha Christie proud. Out of five stories (directed by various directors) somehow I remember the first two - a mysterious carriage with coffins, whose driver says "just room for one inside, sir" and a haunted mirror that drive its owners mad. These two thrilled me to death as a kid and I remember them well with a tingle of excitement combined with fear to this day, excellent example of how our memories are made. Very stylish and sophisticated, mind you. The rest of the movie I don't remember at all - either I was sent to bed or it was simply too much for my little brain. 

So with a biggest pleasure, I re-visited this wonderful omnibus and loved every second of it. The rest of the stories were just as brilliant - a Christmas hide-and-seek game brings a girl in a secluded part of the house where she finds a boy crying and this is no one else but boy mentioned as a victim in "The Suspicions of Mr Whicher" by Kate Summerscale (a real case murder). There is a little out-of-place Golfer's story based on H.G.Wells that kind of don't really belong here because its neither scary nor particularly memorable - more as a TV sketch - but the best of all is the last story about the Ventriloquist (Michael Redgrave) and his domineering doll Hugo. Interesting that I don't remember this story from before, perhaps it didn't appeal to me because it wasn't about the ghosts but rather contemporary - now I see it differently - young Redgrave was excellent and he portrayed his descent into madness not as a full blown extravaganza but very subtle, we could just sense panic in his eyes and he was just getting crazier and crazier from scene to scene, until the final frame gets really chilling and unforgettable. I was so thrilled with the re-discovery of this fabulous old classic that I instantly went further and decided to check another movie showcasing actress Googie Withers.