Dead of Night (Cavalcanti/Hamer/Dearden/Crichton, 1945): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 12.30pm
This film is part of the 'Roots, Rituals and Phantasmagoria' season at BFI Southbank curated by Daniel Kokotajlo, director of the forthcoming film Starve Acre and also screens on September 2nd.
Daniel Kokotajlo introduction: When an architect arrives at a potential client’s house, he gets the feeling he’s been there before. A classic anthology; here again English politeness is critiqued to great effect. A film that puts a spell on you as it develops, the brilliant final segment takes us to an eerie climax; the fatalistic nature of the closing scene is chilling, and an inspiration for the concept of fate in Starve Acre.
Time Out review:
Nearly 60 years on, Ealing's compendium of
spooky tales remains scary as hell. The best of the five stories,
which we see enacted as they're related in turn by guests at a country
house, are Alberto Cavalcanti's 'The Ventriloquist's Dummy', with Michael Redgrave
possessed by his deceptively lifeless little partner, and Hamer's 'The
Haunted Mirror', with the splendid Googie Withers a reluctant participant as
history repeats itself; least frightening, but amusing, are Basil Radford and
Naunton Wayne as typically obsessive sporting coves in Crichton's 'Golfing
Story'. Best of all, however, is the overall narrative arc, with the
framing story finally taking a headlong rush into a nightmarish realm
almost surreal in its weird clarity and familiarity.
Geoff Andrew
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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