This Halloween challenge is giving me the opportunity to catch up with a lot of horror-themed movies I missed out on as I was growing up and this genteel but utterly charming children's ghost story is yet another one such instance. Two young kids who have inherited 30,000 pounds (a fortune in 19th Century England) are about to be done in by their half-brother' (James Villiers)'s nasty in-laws a grotesque couple almost unrecognizably played by Diana Dors (complete with funny speech impediment) and David Lodge (playing a brain-damaged ex-boxer). Unfortunately, their pleas for intervention to both Villiers and their solicitor Mr. Blunden (Laurence Naismith) fall on deaf ears, but the latter becomes so guilt-stricken that he reappears a century later and 'wills' a modern-day couple of kids back into the past to save his charges from a fiery death!
The film is highlighted by a literate script (by director Jeffries), a meticulously-detailed production (for what it's worth, the early setting in London's Camden Town brought back memories to my visits there in January 2007, highlighted by my attending an all-star Rock concert!), an evocative score (by Elmer Bernstein) and good performances by all concerned. Ill-fated Lynne Frederick is one of the children, Hammer starlet Madeline Smith plays Dors' child-like daughter, while Graham Crowden appears briefly as the newest partner in Blunden's firm whose name the old man can never remember; incidentally, the cast list isn't given at the film's beginning rather, Jeffries has the actors introduced at the end and bowing down to the audience just like in a stage play! Incidentally, former actor Jeffries (where he specialized in eccentric, bubbly types) had a reasonable directing career (with a penchant for children-oriented, though not necessarily kiddie, fare): even if his first effort THE RAILWAY CHILDREN (1970) is generally the best regarded of the lot, this one's definitely a close second.
Though not genuine horror fare as such, the ghost and time-travel devices here are enough to grant THE AMAZING MR. BLUNDEN a deserving place in this Halloween challenge; even so, the Leonard Maltin Film Guide's comment regarding its "muddled plot line" probably refers to the children going forward in time before the fateful accident (the boy even says, "You can be a ghost but you don't have to be dead") yet, in the modern-day (1918) setting, we can clearly see their graves (which are no longer there by the end, having been replaced by a monument dedicated to Mr. Blunden who has now died in their place)! In conclusion and, just for the record, my viewing of the film was unfortunately slightly but, thankfully, not too obtrusively hampered by the jerky motion associated with the DivX format.
The film is highlighted by a literate script (by director Jeffries), a meticulously-detailed production (for what it's worth, the early setting in London's Camden Town brought back memories to my visits there in January 2007, highlighted by my attending an all-star Rock concert!), an evocative score (by Elmer Bernstein) and good performances by all concerned. Ill-fated Lynne Frederick is one of the children, Hammer starlet Madeline Smith plays Dors' child-like daughter, while Graham Crowden appears briefly as the newest partner in Blunden's firm whose name the old man can never remember; incidentally, the cast list isn't given at the film's beginning rather, Jeffries has the actors introduced at the end and bowing down to the audience just like in a stage play! Incidentally, former actor Jeffries (where he specialized in eccentric, bubbly types) had a reasonable directing career (with a penchant for children-oriented, though not necessarily kiddie, fare): even if his first effort THE RAILWAY CHILDREN (1970) is generally the best regarded of the lot, this one's definitely a close second.
Though not genuine horror fare as such, the ghost and time-travel devices here are enough to grant THE AMAZING MR. BLUNDEN a deserving place in this Halloween challenge; even so, the Leonard Maltin Film Guide's comment regarding its "muddled plot line" probably refers to the children going forward in time before the fateful accident (the boy even says, "You can be a ghost but you don't have to be dead") yet, in the modern-day (1918) setting, we can clearly see their graves (which are no longer there by the end, having been replaced by a monument dedicated to Mr. Blunden who has now died in their place)! In conclusion and, just for the record, my viewing of the film was unfortunately slightly but, thankfully, not too obtrusively hampered by the jerky motion associated with the DivX format.