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TJisre are footsteps in the hnlls, bangings on the wails, ontl [auyhinjg things that turn doorknobs at nlglti. in The Haunting, but there is nothing so haunting as •-'.hat wi-mI tin in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, the mtvttl upon which this film is based Miss .Ijickson wrote her book, as thought it were a present-day Turn of the Screw, but Robert Wise directs the film as though he knows it is really just a good old-ifishloued ghost story, When the script writers keep their minds on the spooks, Wlao can b(J pretty scary U,o. the Karluff-Ltigosi version of Stevenson’s “The Body Snatcher directed by Wise for Vull.-ewton in ].94b-.)( but when it comes to psychologicalnuances, Wise does no better here than he did lastyear with Two for the Sea saw,One of the worst mistakes of the fiirm was to visualize Hill House so graphically. The first we see of itIs a long shot of a murky fScutlishi castle The house that Miss Jackson buill was just slightly off-angle — not so much a building as a state ol’ mind,The film h other mistake is made in substituting so altered an ending: it is really hare- that the nature of the story becomes irrevocably a Herod. To begin with,Sal’s departure is staged at night; it was much more disturbing in a disarming daylight .setting. Next they show Sal’s teue as a rigged ending, and finally, they have added an epilogue In which everyone derides there might he .such a thing as a ghost, it was much more haunting to leave both 5al’ fate and the existence of ghosts unresolved,fit the film's favor is some well managed black-and-white photography in Cinemascope (the wide screenis finally becoming unobtrusive* and two excellent actresses who couldn't have been better east. They are Julie Karris as tlie introverted Sal and Claire Bloom as the domineering Theo. Their playing leaves nothing to be desired. (Theo is made more of a villa i ness andher Lesbian tendencies are more exploited than in the book.) Richard Johnson is quite dignified as the doctor whoso investigations Into psychic phenomena touch offthe conflicts* and Rust Tamblyn is surprisingly well east as the n'et?r do-well Luke.The best scenes in the film are those in the two main visitation sequences, In the first, the footsteps and bangings grow louder outside a heavily carved door upon which shadows take on slnisterly suggestive shapes, and When the doorknob is turned from the other side, we see the face of a smiling Hun ub carved on it In the climactic visitation, an unseen force presses against a locked door, and the door bands slowly, fantastically inward. They a re borh quite effective.
Newspaper Details
The Rollins Sandspur
Winter Park, Florida, US
Tue, Nov 12, 1963
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Cerafina C.
USA 08 Mar 2023
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