DEAD OF NIGHT (1945)
A man drives, nervously, to a cottage house in the countryside. He’s never visited this part of the country before but is suffering a severe dose of déjà vu. Especially as he is introduced to the other guests, complete strangers, and seems to recognise them.
Our man Walter mentions that he’s seen all of these people before in recurring dreams. As a result of this, he is convinced that something terrible is going to happen in this house. The other guests try to take his mind off it with tales of premonitions they’d suffered in their lives.
And thus starts one of the great horror films. The supergroup of portmanteaus, as Basil “The Man Who Haunted Himself” Dearden combined with Alberto “Went the Day Well” Cavalcanti, Robert “Kind Hearts and Coronets” Hamer, and Charles “Lavender Hill Mob” Crichton to co-direct a series of shorts based on popular ghost stories. We’ve got famous tales by E.F Benson, and HG Wells, and a story loosely based on A.M. Burrage.
We start with our racing driver, Hugh, who had a nasty accident, and winds up in The Bus Conductor. Now, is that story one of Benson’s famous because it was adapted in this film, or was it adapted because it was famous? Six and half a dozen, tbh. Benson had already died of cancer, in 1940, so he couldn’t see the end result. It’s also eerie for a story based around two road accidents to be directed by the great Basil Dearden, who himself died in a car crash, not long after filming the one Roger Moore’s character suffers in The Man Who Haunted Himself. Like also Hamer, Dearden left prematurely, a surplus of talent extinguished. (Charles Crichton lived to old age, and his final film was in fact A Fish Called Wanda, which is a very different film to this one!)
Hugh survived his car crash but has to recover in hospital. He flirts with his nurse and recovers slowly. He dozes off, and wakes up in the daytime, and from his hospital window, he sees a hearse parked outside the hospital. The driver looks at him and says the immortal line “room for one inside”.
“Then I heard suddenly and not very far away the sound of some approaching vehicle; I could distinguish the tread of two horses walking at a slow foot’s pace. They were, though not yet visible, coming up the street, and yet this indication of life did not abate that dreadful sense of loneliness which I have spoken of. Also in some dim unformulated way that which was coming seemed to me to have something to do with the cause of my oppression. “Then the vehicle came into sight. At first I could not distinguish what it was. Then I saw that the horses were black and had long tails, and that what they dragged was made of glass, but had a black frame. It was a hearse. Empty .“It was moving up this side of the street. It stopped at your door.”
EF Benson, The Bus Conductor
Hugh realises it was a horrible dream, and is discharged in time, but then when he was is waiting for a bus, he finds his usual service overcrowded. “Just room for one inside” says the bus conductor, and Hugh in horror slinks away, while the bus plunges to its doom on a bridge.
It's such a famous story that its almost a horror cliche these days, I know.
The cinematography surrounding Anthony Baird looking down on the hearse, and his horror, is incredibly well done. Another feather in the cap of the late great Douglas Slocombe, who framed more iconic cinema shots than you’ve had hot dinners. Before his death in 2016, at the age of 103, Slocombe manned the cameras on (to pick just a few): Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Lion in Winter, The Italian Job and the Indiana Jones trilogy. Proper movie legend.
Glasgow actor Anthony Baird doesn’t have a Wiki but he was a regular on UK TV in the 1960s and can be seen in regular Talking Pictures alumni The Iron Maiden.
Whereas here, he is playing with madness.
What a lovely tale to tell a man who was worried about dreams and premonitions!
Sally Ann Howes shows up, the last surviving actor from this film (until 2021). She has a story to tell everyone about a game of hide and seek at a mansion. She gets lost and comforts a mysterious young boy.
If this sounds like Smee to you, it sounds like Smee to me too.
“‘I wonder if any of you have played a game called “Smee”. It’s a great improvement on the ordinary game of hide-and-seek. The name derives from the ungrammatical colloquialism, “It’s me.” You might care to play if you’re going to play a game of that sort. Let me tell you the rules. ‘Every player is presented with a sheet of paper. All the sheets are blank except one, on which is written “Smee”. Nobody knows who is “Smee” except “Smee” himself—or herself, as the case may be. The lights are then turned out and “Smee” slips from the room and goes off to hide, and after an interval the other players go off in search, without knowing whom they are actually in search of. One player meeting another challenges with the word “Smee” and the other player, if not the one concerned, answers “Smee.”‘The real “Smee” makes no answer when challenged, and the second player remains quietly by him. Presently they will be discovered by a third player, who, having challenged and received no answer, will link up with the first two. This goes on until all the players have formed a chain, and the last to join is marked down for a forfeit. It’s a good noisy, romping game, and in a big house it often takes a longtime to complete the chain. You might care to try it; and I’ll pay my forfeit and smoke one of Tim’s excellent cigars here by the fire until you get tired of it.’
AM Burrage, Smee
Of course, they played the game and stumbled across the long dead girl. It’s another incredibly famous ghost story. Mark Gatiss had a shot at it in Crooked House. This portion is loosely based on it.
Then we get an evil mirror story. Another staple, though this one works quite well. If you’ve seen Twenty-Two and Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room, you know that Rod Serling was a huge fan of this film. And that you can draw a straight line between Benson, Dead of Night, Twilight Zone and the Final Destination series.
The mirror story is particularly well done. There's an uneasiness to the madness it portrays. The last segment is the most famous, but I think this episode works best for atmosphere.
A comedy about golf is next. This is the HG Wells segment!
“"He had dropped his hands and stopped his booing, and there he stood, abashed and awkward, the ghost of a weak, silly, aimless young man. I'm haunting,' he said.
"'You haven't any business to,' I said, in a quiet voice.
"'I'm a ghost,' he said, as if in defence.” ‘That may be, but you haven't any business to haunt here. This is a respectable private club; people often stop here with nursemaids and children, and, going about in the careless way you do, some poor little mite might easily come upon you and be scared out of her wits. I suppose you didn't think of that?'
"'No, sir,' he said, I didn't.'
HG Wells, The Inexperienced Ghost
It’s very loosely based on the Wells tale, tbh.
Our final vignette is the famous ventriloquist dummy one. Michael Redgrave gets top billing despite only appearing in this segment. It's also the segment that has the moment which always catches me off guard!
I’m aiming not to spoil the famous bits of this film, but suffice to say, this is a great film. It gets a bit timey wimey in places, and the HG Wells golfers segment doesn’t really fit the tone.
In fact, the golfers don’t even fit into the original story!
However, the Benson quick snap, the dummy, and especially the mirror tale lift this into the land of the great portmanteaus. So many great actors in this – Ralph Michael’s tormented husband, trying to fight fate; Mervyn Jones nervous Walter; Frederick Valk’s imperious Dr van Staaten, who never sees the danger starring him in the face. Even Miles Malleson, who you might better know from The Brides of Dracula, has a memorable role as the hearse driver/bus conductor.
If you haven’t seen this one, go watch it now! It's one of the all time great horror films, and still packs a few punches even nearly eighty years on.
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