Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Movie review - "A Place of One's Own" (1945) **

Gainsborough were best known for their melodramas during the war but Maurice Ostrer and Ted Black actually liked a well rounded program so they also turned out musicals, dramas and ghost stories like this one. It features their two biggest stars, James Mason and Margaret Lockwood, but gives them a chance to do something different, especially Mason who puts on whiskers and acts as a doddery old dude.

You wonder why they cast him - presumably to keep the grumpy actor happy after The Man in Grey. It's distracting to see him - you never believe he's an old man, he's a young man in make up acting "old", and thus distances the viewer from the action.

Lockwood's part is more standard - she plays a pretty young thing, the type of role she used specialise in before becoming famous as a bad girl and having Phyllis Calvert take over those parts. She's sweet and likeable and Dennis Prices is okay as her love interest.

The main problem with the film is it's not very scary. Lockwood becomes possessed by the ghost of a dead woman but nothing much more happens - no lives are at stake, no one gets that much of a shock. There's not even suspenseful sequences. It lacks atmosphere. It's so  benign and tranquil you wonder why they made it. The production values and camerawork are good.

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