Saturday, March 01, 2014

Movie review - "The Ghost Ship" (1952) ** (warning: spoilers)

Dermot Walsh and Hazel Court play a couple who buy a yacht - an awfully big one too with a stoker who works underneath and everything. They sink a lot of money and time into it and get worried when they think it might be haunted.

This low budget British thriller was part financed by Nat Cohen, whose stamp pops up on many British films of the 50s through to 70s, but isn't one of his best efforts. The writer-director Vernon Sewell liked the basic story (based on a play) - this was the third of four movies he made of it. 

But the material isn't that strong - the lead couple aren't that interesting, and neither is the mystery. I hate ghost stories where it's revealed to be not a ghost after all - it always feels like a cheat. And a young Ian Carmichael does a very long, unfunny drunk sequence which I think is meant to be charming.

There is some humour in the scene where a scientist explains about people's ability to sense psychic phenomena, with materialistic money-hungry people being less susceptible. The acting is on the whole solid (there's an Aussie in the cast, Joss Ambler), the photography fine and it doesn't go for very long. Small virtues but at least they're there.

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