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The Haunting (1963) A Supernatural Horror Noir Masterpiece

 

"A Horror Noir Nightmare"

Directed by Robert Wise (The Body Snatcher, Born To Kill, The Set-Up, The Day The Earth Stood Still, I Want To Live, Odds Against Tomorrow, The Andromeda Strain).  

Written by Nelson Gidding and based on Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House.

The Cinematography was by Davis Boulton (Children of the Damned). Music by Humphrey Searle, excellent Production Design by John Jarvis, Set Design by Elliot Scott, and kudos to Desmond Briscoe for special sound effects.

The film stars Julie Harris (Requiem For A Heavyweight, Harper, Reflections In A Golden Eye, The Bell Jar) as Eleanor Lance, Claire Bloom (The Man Between, The Outrage, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Charly) as Theodora, Richard Johnson as Dr. John Markway, and Russ Tamblyn (Reign of Terror, Gun Crazy, Twin Peaks, Twin Peaks TV, Django Unchained, Twin Peaks TV (2017) as Luke Sannerson.

The Story 

Dr. John Markway is by day, your normal everyday anthropology professor and by night a paranormal detective. He's been investigating paranormal events over the years and has finally located what by all accounts is a genuine haunted house, Hill House. He's been reluctant to publish any pieces on his theories until he is able to investigate Hill House and get some evidence. He attempted to assemble a team of noted clairvoyants, telekinetic connected individuals and others, together, to occupy and observe and document any paranormal activities. He also is accompanied by Luke Sannerson one of the heirs of Hill House, there to represent the family's interests.

Richard Johnson as Dr. John Markway

In both the novel by Shirley Jackson and the film the doctor (named Montague in the novel) is only able to enlist Eleanore Lance, and a beatnik artist who goes only by the name of Theodora or Theo, of the other seven some invitations got returned with address unknown, and the rest begged off. 

Julie Harris as Eleanor Lance

Claire Bloom as Theodora

Russ Tamblyn as Luke Sannerson

Dr. Markway arranges to rent the use of Hill House. In the novel it is specified that the period is three months. In the film its two weeks. 

The film opens with an image of Hill House shrouded in shadows, a silhouette backlit by the last light of a mackerel sky sunset.  

We get an introductory Voice Over by Dr. Markway.

Dr. John Markway: [Voice-Over] An evil old house, the kind some people call haunted, is like an undiscovered country waiting to be explored. Hill House had stood for 90 years and might stand for 90 more. Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there... walked alone.

That leads into the credits and title sequence. The mackerel sky fades to black and we finally get a better view of the house. 

Now right from the get go if you are visually perceptive, or very observant, you know you're in Noirsville. 

The whole film has a very, very, slightly distorted sort of "fish eye" effect, giving the house a look that is highly reminiscent of a German Expressionist film. It leans into it self. You may not see in immediately because the 2.35:1 aspect ratio spreads it out enough to make it only slightly disorienting. The farther your eye strays from the center of the frame the more the faint curvature become apparent. It gives the illusion of Hill House sort of collapsing inward upon itself.  

This effect is from a 30mm lens that Panavision was still working on that had distortions. Wise obtained the lens on the condition that he sign a memorandum acknowledging the imperfections. I'm sure it was probably also for liability purposes.

Another slightly disorienting feature is the UK filling in for New England. It's really done well. So you wonder why they used a 1960 Hillman Husky, a car you rarely see driving by here but is quite common in European Films. 

Markway continues in voiceover giving us the rundown on the series of paranormal and other unfortunate events which you can think of as a chronicle of the house's bonafides as a genuine haunted house. 

On the other hand a sceptic could also conclude that there's an awful lot of bad luck connected with the place.

This second V.O. starts a flashback sequence.

Dr. John Markway[Voice-Over]: Scandal. Murder, Insanity. Suicide. The history of Hill House was ideal, it had everything I wanted. It was built ninety odd very odd years ago, by a man named Hugh Crain, for his wife and daughter in the most remote part of New England he could find. It was an evil house from the beginning, a house that was born bad. 

Hugh Crain's young wife died seconds before she would have set eyes on the house. She died for no apparent reason when her horses bolted crashing her carriage against a big tree. Mrs. Crain was carried... lifeless i believe is the word, into the home her husband had built for her. 

Hugh Crain was left an embittered man with a small daughter Abigail to bring up. Fortunately, for me that is, Hugh Crain did not leave Hill House and married again. The second Mrs. Crain's death was even more interesting than her predecessor. I've been unable to find out why or how she fell, but I have my suspicions.

The demise of the 2nd Mrs. Crain

Hugh Crain left Abigail with a nurse and went to England where he died in a drowning accident. For some reason. Abigail always kept the nursery in Hill House where she grew up, and grew old. 

In later years she became a bedridden invalid. She took a girl from the village to live with her as a paid companion. It's with this young companion that the evil reputation of Hill House really begins. The story goes that while the old ly was dying upstairs the young companion was fooling around with a farm hand on the veranda downstairs. 

The companion inherited Hill House, and occupied it for many years. The local people believed that one way or another the companion had murdered her benefactor. She lived a life of complete solitude in the empty house, though some say that the house was not empty and never has been since the night miss Abby died. They say that whatever was and still is in the house eventually drove the companion mad. We do know she hanged herself. 

The Companion

After her death the house passed legally to distant relatives in Boston. Mrs Sannerson. 

Here we come out of the flashback. 

Resuming the present tale with Dr. Markway explaining to Mrs. Sannerson why he wants to use the supposedly "haunted" house to ascertain with his team if there's basically any there, there. 

She asks a few questions and gets a few details about his team. She and her lawyer or advisor OK Markway's request and decide to send her nephew Luke who will inherit Hill House after she passes, to watching over the estate's interests. 

When Mrs. Sannerson asks Markway what he hopes to find, Markway replies "a key to another world." 

We cut to Dr. Markway who is also a university anthropologist in his office assembling his team. Nine names are written in chalk on a blackboard. 

He's sucking a tar bar with a piece of paper in one hand and a clipboard in the other. He's putting check marks next to names. He checks off Eleanor Lance.

We cut to Eleanor at her sisters home arguing with her sister and brother-in-law about her taking the car to go on a vacation (and join Dr. Markway's team up North). She however  does not tell them where she is going Or what she will be doing. 

Fragile Eleanor is our tales main character. She also has a prominent V.O. narration.

She tells her sister and her husband, that she paid for half of the car, and it's her turn to use it. Eleanor we hear has been stuck taking care of her invalid mother for years until her recent death. She has mommy problems. 

When Eleanor gets upset or frustrated she,  on some of these occasions, will blurt out "Mother said...." before catching herself.  She does so here while arguing and her sister gives her a smug look. You get the impression they think Elenore is too nervous to handle taking the car. Her sister tells her no she can't have it. Eleanor responds by telling them all to get out of her room.

We cut to a Boston Underground parking garage and watch Eleanor wake up the snoozing attendant and gets the key to the car. We get her first V.O. as she stops at the top of the ramp.  

She pulls out the letter she got from Markway and rereads part of the beginning then jumps down to the directions take 50 North to turn off for Rt. 238.  

Eleanor [V.O]: Route 238, at last I'm going some place where I am expected and given shelter, and I shall never have to come back. I hope, I hope, I hope, this is what I;ve been waiting for all my life. [starts to pull off ramp and into traffic]  I'm going, I'm really going, I'm finally taking the step.

By now they know the cars gone, but they don't know where. They would never suspected it of me. I would never suspected it of myself. I'm a new person. 

Some day, some day, some day I'll have an apartment of my own with a house, and a pair of stone lions guarding the gate. I might just stop anywhere, and never leave again or just drive on and on until the wheels are worn to nothing, tand I've come to the end of the world. I wonder if all homeless people feel that way. I wonder what Dr. Markway's like? I wonder who else will be there? Wonder what Hill House is like. 

She finally drives to the gate. [in the novel she stops in the closest town to Hill House for a cup of coffee. Dr Markway specifically suggested in his letter that she not mention where she was going to any of the locals]. 

The gate is chained shut. She honks the horn and Mr. Dudley, the caretaker Markway mentioned in the letter, comes around enquiring who she is.

Valentine Dyall as Mr Dudley

He's a little testy but all the dreary years of caring for her invalid mother come to a head and she forcefully tells him she's expected and demands to be let in. He complies. 

On the drive towards the house she slams on the breaks when she first sees it. 

Eleanor [V.O]: Its starring at me. Vial, vile, get away from here. Get away at once. It's my chance, I've been given a last chance. I could turn my car around and go away from here and no one would blame me. Anyone has a right to run away. But you are running away Eleanor. There's nowhere else to go. 

She continues up to the house.

Eleanor [V.O]: It's waiting for me, patient, waiting. 

She walks onto a veranda and is just about to lift the large knocker when the door is opened by Mrs. Dudley the housekeeper.  

Eleanor walks in and stops as she surveys the richly carved wood and lavish appointments. She pauses and asks if Mrs. Dudley would take her to her room. Mrs Dudley silently heads up the staircase. 

Mrs Dudley silently heads up the staircase. Eleanor hurries to follow. She pauses at the carved stone head of a girl. Then is startled by her own reflection in mirror near the top of the stair. She is momentarily lost until Mrs Dudley calls to her.

Mrs. Dudley: Here! [Eleanor walks over] This is your room. 

Eleanor: How nice.

Mrs. Dudley: I can't keep the rooms they way I'd like but there's no one else I can get that would help me. 

Eleanor: How very nice. 

Mrs. Dudley: I set dinner on the dining room sideboard at 6. I clear up in the morning. I have breakfast for you at 9. I don't wait on people. I don't stay after I set out the dinner, not after it begins to get dark. I leave before the dark.

Eleanor: Your husband?

Mrs. Dudley: We live over in town, miles away.

Eleanor: Yes.

Mrs. Dudley: So there won't be anyone around if you need help.

Eleanor: I understand.

Mrs. Dudley: We couldn't hear you. In the night.

Eleanor:  Do you have any idea when Dr. Markway...

Mrs. Dudley: [cuts her off] No one could. No one lives any nearer than town. No one will come any nearer than that.

Eleanor: I know.

Mrs. Dudley: In the night. In the dark.

[Mrs. Dudley grins and leaves]

The door shuts, Eleanor looks around the room.  

Eleanor [V.O]: I'm like a small creature swallowed hole by a monster, and the monster feels me in side. Now Eleanor Lance you just stop it. 

Eleanor arguing with herself in V.O., summons up her courage and she hoists up her suitcase and lays it atop the bed. She walks into the bathroom and when she hears voices beyond the doorway to the adjoining room. she opens it.  

The novel tells us that Theodora a beatnik artist, and is living with a roommate down in The Village. The novel explains Theodora has had a spat with said roommate and this pushed her into deciding to agree to be part of the team. 

Eleanor: Thank heavens somebody's here! My name is Eleanor Lance. [holding out her hand] I'm glad you're here.

Theo: I'm Theodora just Theodora. What about the crazy house?

Eleanor: I'm right next door we have a connecting bath.

For Eleanor, knowing that she is not alone, and meeting another member of the team allays her fears. 

Talking to another woman, a kindred spirit makes Eleanor's inner core stronger and it gives her even more confidence. They both hit it off and they get acquainted with each other while Mrs. Dudley is droning through her same routine about supper at six on the sideboard, breakfast at nine, and no one will hear you scream at night alone in the dark. lol 

Theo senses that Eleanor is frightened. 

Theo: You're frightened Nell.

Eleanor: No more, just when I thought I was all alone. But, how did you know, my nickname was Nell?

Theo: Well, that is the affectionate term for Eleanor, isn't it?

Eleanor: Yes, yes I suppose it is [laughs] what a nice way of putting it.

Theo: The affectionate term for Theodora is Theo.

Eleanor: Theo...  we're gonna be great friends.

Theo: Like sisters. 

"Like sisters,,,,"

They decide to go exploring. Theo makes a joke about Eleanor better wear one of her new things something visible. Eleanore agrees, and is on the way to change when she suddenly realizes that Theo somehow knew she bought new clothes. (in the novel they go outside and explore the grounds around the estate). 

In the film we are abruptly introduced to one of the hallways with an unusual pan. From ceiling fixture to a diagonal sweep across the hall to Eleanor, who from a low angle is walking towards us creating the visual of the house looming ominously behind her. 

Elleanor, her shoulders slightly hunched clutching at her hands, has a worried look on her face .

Eleanor [Voice Over]: How did I get into this? Why am I here? What nightmare have I... 

Theo comes out of a door behind Eleanore, interrupting her internal dialog. 

Theo: Damn it I still say one of these doors should lead to the main hall. Any lights near you Nell? 

They are lost and fumbling their way around until Theo realises that they haven't gone that-a-way yet and they take off down yet another hall until Eleanor walks into a cold draft. (Now the novel describes that this particular draft of cold air as cold enough, that when the Doctor tries to measure it's dimensions with a measuring tape, his hands get cold enough that he loses all feeling of his fingers and drops the tape measure.) 

Eleanor stops and shudders.

Eleanor: Uhhhh!

What's the matter?

Eleanor: Something's with us!

I don't see anything. [over talking Eleanor] I feel a chill.

They argue lightly "like sisters" Theo being dismissive, it's just "air rushing past" a draft, and walks out of the frame. But Eleanor framed alone now, disagrees.

Eleanor:  The House... It's alive!

"It's alive."

We hear a woman sobbing, Eleanor looks at Theo walking away. 

Eleanor [Voice Over]: She doesn't hear that. Nobody heard it but me.

But we cut to a reverse shot of Theo walking up a staircase with Eleanor now way in the background.

Theo: It wants you Nell. The house is calling you. 

We cut back to Eleanor who we watch backing away down the hallway.

Eleanor [Voice Over]: I've waited such a long time, is this what I came so far to find? [backing away further] It won't let me go! 

Throughout the whole sequence the music is effectively ratcheting up the tension.

Suddenly it's all deflated when just as we cut to an overhead shot of Eleanor. Doors swing open flooding her in light. It's  Doctor Markway, who tells her that he'd just opened that door five minutes ago, so you could find your way. It closed by itself.

Dr. John Markway: Welcome to hill house. I'm Dr. Markway.

Here's where we get some info on Hill House. Markway explains that Hugh Crain built the hose to his own specifications, none of the corners are right angles resulting in everything being slightly off. Even the doors are hung off center, so they always close. (In the novel because of this, they use various items of furniture or fern pots, vases, etc., etc. to keep the doors propped open, as they explore Hill House) We also in the film begin to sense some rivalry between Eleanor and Theo over the attention of Markway. There's enough intentional or un-intentional subtext that may may be being played with here that you the viewer can assume anything your imagination can come up with.

Markway has selected an interior room he calls the purple parlor for a base of operations. There, they meet the final member of the team Luke Sannereson.

In the dining room over dinner Markway explains the nature of the experiment to document the super natural. He explains that there were originally more members but for one reason or another they pulled out. Perhaps Markway surmises when they researched the nature of Hill House. To this both Eleanor and Theo plead ignorance. They know nothing about Hill House. Here is where we find out that Luke is there to represent the heirs of the house, that Theo was chosen because of her clairvoyant abilities, and that Eleanor was associated with poltergeist events when she was a child. It was recorded in newspapers and police reports that her house had been basically rained on by stones for a three day period, when she was a child.

At first Elleanor denies to the group that it ever happened, then blurts out that "Mother said that is was the neighbors..., before catching herself. The group also finds out that her mother had just passed away a few months ago.

Theo replies to the group that the doctor has a nice way of calling us (meaning herself and Eleanor) bait.

Now if you read about the genesis of the film from the novel. The screenwriter approached the tale with the premise that some of the things happening to Eleanor in Hill House where just going on in her head. When they asked Shirley Jackson the author about their interpretation of the novel for the film she told them that in the novel it was all supernatural. 

Here in the film with Eleanor's V.O. and Theo's clairvoyance, you can interpret it both ways since it seems to fluctuate between these two. Is Theo experiencing what's going on in Eleanor's head or is it an actual supernatural occurrence. Markway and Luke, don't experience all the same events but have their own weird occurrences.  

Of course it all goes spiralling Noirsville when the direction, cinematography, excellent acting, excellent visual and audio supernatural effects, combine to phototropic-ly stimulate this into the audio visual masterpiece it is.

Noirsville

Here's a case where if you've seen the film first before reading the novel you'll probably still enjoy the bit more backstory you get from the novel. 

The film follows the story pretty closely up to a point, just eliminating a few forays out of the house by Theo and Eleanor. These forays are into the Hill House estate with its surrounding hills and give it its name.The film pretty much keeps to the house, we never see hills. 

<spoilers>

It's at the arrival of Grace Markway where the film and novel diverge. Grace arrives solo in the film and is a total sceptic and demands to stay in the nursery, ground zero for the Hill House spooks. lol

In the novel Grace arrives with Arthur a headmaster of a boys school. Grace is a devotee of planchette and magical writing. Her assistant in her magical writing is this Arthur. Grace tries to dominate the experiment and as a result they become flies in the ointment to all of Dr. Markways plans. \

Also the novel does describe a vision or hallucination of a "ghostly picnic," observed by Eleanor while out the grounds of the estate. Eliminating this scene adds to the ambiguity between the supernatural and psychological explanation of events. If I remember right, it's these are the only "ghosts," in the novel.

<spoilers> 

The Haunting is not only, "undoubtedly the scariest ghost movie ever made." (The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film), but it's exceptional use of both Audio and Visual Style might just possibly make it one of the greatest of the Noir Style films shot in Black & White ever made. 

Artistically directed, by a man who had a vision, knew what he wanted, and mastered the Style to bring it to fruition.  Lensed by a cinematographer who knew how to film it, along with an artistic studio design team that built it, just before the end of Black & White film production by the major studios. Bravo!

The location shots of the "New England" countryside looks familiar but still a the bit off, its not New England, its actually Hertfordshire and Warwickshire in the U.K. It all just adds to the films atmosphere. 

No one plays neurotic like Julie Harris, in the 60s she was the queen of the frail neurotics, and in this one probably also a virginal one. With her more dominant voice over she is the main Noir character, we are on this rollercoaster ride with her. 

Claire Bloom is of course "the girl in black stockings" in her beatnik bohemian artist outfit. She can be said to be subtly subtexting lesbian vibes, in some of her statements, her looks, and mannerisms. This gives their latter scenes in bed together and some of Eleanor's subsequent remarks, a whole nother layer to contemplate.  

Both actresses also effectively convey that they are in a jealous competition with each other, for the attention of Dr. Markway. It's an instinctive game for Theo, but fragile Eleanor is more susceptible to deluding herself after all the lost time she spent in seclusion, taking care of her mother. While worldwise Theo figures out the score and warns her not to jump to any conclusions about Markway. 

The film communicates all these intricate emotions with looks, gestures, camera angles, and body language.   

Richard Johnson is great as Dr. John Markway. Ditto for Claire Bloom, Bloom I mostly remember from Charly. Russ Tamblyn is convincing enough for the nature of his character. He's got the Robert Wagner / Dean Jones type of sidekick role in this, providing some pressure relieving wisecracks and humor.

This was one of those films which came about when The National Film Finance Corporation was making funds available for films shot in the UK., as an attempt to bolster the U.K. film industry. It explains what attracted Wise to the UK as the films producer. and also the reason for the U.S. - U.K. cast.

The films Visual Style imprints you with an atmosphere that is unforgettable.  A masterpiece 10/10.