British, soundstage-bound, gothic horror(ish) mystery, starring James Mason, Joyce Howard, and Wilfrid Lawson. Two young female schoolteachers travel to the Yorkshire Moors where their friend disappeared a year ago. However, as they cross the moors, they lose their way in a violent storm. After nearly sinking in the bog they stumble across a mysterious house where they decide to take shelter.
This has those wonderful fog-shrouded sets so prevalent at the time (think The Hound of the Baskerviles). We also get wild, Bronte-type scenery, skeletons in secret chambers, and ominous shots of clouds flitting across the full moon. A young James Mason is at his glowering best, as the tortured loner with a secret; Joyce Howard is at her swooning best, as the heroine who refuses to believe ill of him, and Wilfred Lawson is at his, well, pickled best (he had a notorious drink problem, to the point where it was often written into his parts), as the handyman. It's a stagy melodrama through and through and some of the dialogue is unintentionally funny now, but there's bags of atmosphere and an ending I didn't see coming. 7/10.
This has those wonderful fog-shrouded sets so prevalent at the time (think The Hound of the Baskerviles). We also get wild, Bronte-type scenery, skeletons in secret chambers, and ominous shots of clouds flitting across the full moon. A young James Mason is at his glowering best, as the tortured loner with a secret; Joyce Howard is at her swooning best, as the heroine who refuses to believe ill of him, and Wilfred Lawson is at his, well, pickled best (he had a notorious drink problem, to the point where it was often written into his parts), as the handyman. It's a stagy melodrama through and through and some of the dialogue is unintentionally funny now, but there's bags of atmosphere and an ending I didn't see coming. 7/10.