The Ghost (1963 film)  

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"A woman and her lover murder her husband, a doctor. Soon, however, strange things start happening, and they wonder if they really killed him, or if he is coming back from the dead to haunt them." --Sholem Stein

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The Ghost (Italian title: Lo Spettro) is a 1963 Italian horror film directed by Riccardo Freda, using the pseudonym "Robert Hampton". The film stars Barbara Steele and Peter Baldwin. Other titles for the film include The Spectre and Lo Spettro del Dr. Hichcock.

Its story is told in Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957-1969 (2015) by Roberto Curti.


Contents

Plot

In 1910 Scotland, the ailing Doctor Hichcock (Elio Jotta), bound to his wheelchair, presides over seances in which his housekeeper, Catherine (Harriet Medin), acts as the medium. According to Hichcock's theory, shots of lethal poison shortly after followed by an antidote could cure his physical disability. The younger Doctor Livingstone (Peter Baldwin) stays with him in the house to regularly administer this dangerous treatment.

Hichcock's wife Margaret (Barbara Steele) finds living with her husband increasingly unbearable. Not unbeknown to him, she is having an affair with Livingstone. She implores him to murder Hichcock, which he does by not administering the antidote. During the distribution of Hichcock's estate, Margaret and Livingstone learn Hichcock only recently changed his testament. Margaret only gets the house.

Upon Catherine telling them that the key to the doctor's safe containing the jewels and other valuables was in the jacket buried with him, they secretly open his grave and retrieve it. Livingstone opens the safe. It is empty. Later, they hear Hichcock's voice calling to them and experience other poltergeist phenomena, including the appearance of ghostlike Hichcock himself. One night, Catherine, apparently possessed by Hichcock, speaks in his voice and tells Margaret that his fortune is buried beneath his coffin. She returns to the grave to find a golden box. Upon opening it, she cuts herself. The box contains nothing but a skull. Catherine then insinuates that Livingstone took the jewels for himself when he opened the safe in Margaret's absence. Indeed, Margaret finds them in his bag, much to Livingstone's surprise. Margaret slashes him to death with a razor and drags him into the cellar where she uses kerosene from a lamp to burn his body.

Margaret is drawn to Hichcock's study by the ringing of his carillon, where she contemplates suicide by poison, pouring it in a glass of gin, but does not drink. She starts feeling ill and sits down when Hichcock appears, alive and no longer disabled. He tells her that he poisoned the box with a non-lethal dose of curare, which is now quickly paralizing her. Hichcock then shoots Catherine, his accomplice, in the back and makes Margaret touch the gun to incriminate her. Finally, the glass of gin Margaret poured for herself, he makes a toast to her ill health and drinks it. When he realises it is poisoned, he begs Margaret for the antidote. She laughs and destroys the vial. Hichcock seals himself inside a secret room behind the bookshelf, locking himself in. The police arrive and arrest the laughing and paralized Margaret for Catherine's murder, carrying her out of the room.

When Canon Owens, the parish priest, arrives and hears muffled noises from behind the library, he addresses Hichcock's portrait with the words, "I told you, Doctor Hichcock, the Devil is a very real person." He then leaves the room.

Production

The Ghost was shot in Rome. It is a gothic re-imagining of the film Les Diaboliques (1955).

The Italian production crew are credited by aliases. The music score is credited to "Franck Wallace", whom Italian magazine Bianco e Nero and the Monthly Film Bulletin claim is a pseudonym for Franco Mannino. When Beat Records re-released the score, they found the tapes credited to Francesco De Masi who is not credited in the film.

Release

The Ghost was released in Italy on March 30, 1963, where it was distributed by Dino de Laurentiis. The film grossed a total of ₤175 million lira on its theatrical release. Freda said that the censors did not object to any of the film's content.

The film was later released in the United Kingdom in February 1964 and in the United States on February 18, 1965 in Dallas.

Critical reception

In a contemporary review, The Monthly Film Bulletin stated that "Pictorially the film is a knock-out" while the dubbed dialogue is "more inept than ever". The review concluded that The Ghost was "a splendid exercise in Grand Guignol" Leonard Maltin awarded the film two and a half out of a possible four stars complimenting the film's atmosphere, calling it a "Measured, moody horror, let down by routine plot".

See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "The Ghost (1963 film)" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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