I haven't read the short story this episode is based on in ages, so I don't know if the same problems with this episode are in the story as well. The episode ends on a strange, incomplete note, and the whole story seems sort of pointless. It doesn't really go anywhere. There are some atmospheric moments, but like other episodes in this series The producers have gone for a rather stately tone instead of capitalizing an opportunities for creepiness and atmosphere. The pacing is rather slow, and the score, well not bad, doesn't do its job in helping with the pacing at atmosphere issues. This episode, and subsequent ones, I've just found disappointing given the reputation of this show.
4 Reviews
crisp taut upstairs-downstairsy ghoster lacks closure
heartfield-114 November 2017
Warning: Spoilers
do you need closure or not? if there's a riddle, do you need an Agatha Christie to spell the answer out for you? if so, this otherwise well-produced ghost story might leave you anxious. maybe there's no harm in that.
famous US lady author Edith Wharton wrote the original short story in 1902, and thank the producers for not rewriting the vague finish. the hero is a young woman who goes into service as a lady's maid for a nice woman in a big house in the country, and a husband she doesn't like. she likes a male neighbor better, he's less masculiney and more poetic, and they hang out together when her annoying hub is away in London-or-somewhere on weekdays.
the fly in the ointment is the ghost of the previous lady's maid, who died a year ago, whose former room is kept locked, and who materializes to haunt her replacement. you decide what this ghost is after: avenging her own death, hinting she's been murdered, trying to save her lady and poetic pal, warning the husband of their treachery?
don't ask me! i assume the title gives the answer and one must look to the bell. the lady tells her maid it won't ring, the housemaid will fetch her if need arises. but it does ring one night and there's the husband, in his wife's room bothering her, which he leaves when the maid knocks in answer to the bell. if the lady didn't ring the bell, who did? the ghost? why? (see above) good luck.
although the story, performances, costumes, landscape are lovely, the director fails to conjure an atmosphere that supports the blurry ending. everything's laid out so clearly, it's not a good surprise when no resolution is forthcoming. prepare yourself for ambiguity.
famous US lady author Edith Wharton wrote the original short story in 1902, and thank the producers for not rewriting the vague finish. the hero is a young woman who goes into service as a lady's maid for a nice woman in a big house in the country, and a husband she doesn't like. she likes a male neighbor better, he's less masculiney and more poetic, and they hang out together when her annoying hub is away in London-or-somewhere on weekdays.
the fly in the ointment is the ghost of the previous lady's maid, who died a year ago, whose former room is kept locked, and who materializes to haunt her replacement. you decide what this ghost is after: avenging her own death, hinting she's been murdered, trying to save her lady and poetic pal, warning the husband of their treachery?
don't ask me! i assume the title gives the answer and one must look to the bell. the lady tells her maid it won't ring, the housemaid will fetch her if need arises. but it does ring one night and there's the husband, in his wife's room bothering her, which he leaves when the maid knocks in answer to the bell. if the lady didn't ring the bell, who did? the ghost? why? (see above) good luck.
although the story, performances, costumes, landscape are lovely, the director fails to conjure an atmosphere that supports the blurry ending. everything's laid out so clearly, it's not a good surprise when no resolution is forthcoming. prepare yourself for ambiguity.
Atmospheric ghost story that quietly scares
Marta6 August 2005
Based on one of Edith Wharton's best-known ghost stories, "The Lady's Maid's Bell" was shown originally on PBS' Mystery! series in 1984, under the Shades of Darkness series name (which is still owned by Granada Television), this neglected gem and the 6 other shows in the series have not been shown since, which is truly a shame. They are excellent adaptations of high quality ghost stories and deserve to be shown again. Granada finally released the series on DVD in 2010.
The year is 1902. Miss Hartley, a lady's maid recently recovered from a bout of typhoid and desperate for a job, is accepted as maid at a remote country estate. The lady of the house, Mrs. Brympton, had rheumatic fever as a child and is in delicate health. Her husband is gone during the week and only comes home on weekends. Miss Hartley begins to hear vague rumors about the prior lady's maid, who died after 20 years service, being like a sister to Mrs. Brympton, and that they were inseparable; Mrs. Brympton has sealed and locked the maid's room and no one can enter it, so Miss Hartley is given the room next to it. Miss Hartley glimpses a woman standing in front of this locked door, however, whom she thinks is the housekeeper. When she finds out there is no housekeeper, no one will answer her questions as to who this woman was. She's also told that they don't use the bell in her room; someone will come to get her if Mrs. Brympton wants her. This is perplexing, since there is a bell in her room and it still works. She begins to piece the story together, and also has to fight off the advances of Mr. Brympton, a stocky, florid man with a walrus mustache who seems to terrify his wife. By the time she thinks she knows what is going on, she's terrified of the closed room and begins to see why her mistress is growing more nervous by the day.
Edith Wharton supposedly wrote this based on a dream she had while she recovered from the typhoid, and it seems to have a fevered aura to it. Wharton could write marvelous ghost stories, and this is as good as any she did. The adaptation is a superior one that mixes in a little levity and then hits you with a scare. Joanna David is wonderful as Miss Hartley, and Ian Collier fits the slimy character of the husband perfectly. It's my personal favorite among the episodes in the Shades of Darkness series.
The year is 1902. Miss Hartley, a lady's maid recently recovered from a bout of typhoid and desperate for a job, is accepted as maid at a remote country estate. The lady of the house, Mrs. Brympton, had rheumatic fever as a child and is in delicate health. Her husband is gone during the week and only comes home on weekends. Miss Hartley begins to hear vague rumors about the prior lady's maid, who died after 20 years service, being like a sister to Mrs. Brympton, and that they were inseparable; Mrs. Brympton has sealed and locked the maid's room and no one can enter it, so Miss Hartley is given the room next to it. Miss Hartley glimpses a woman standing in front of this locked door, however, whom she thinks is the housekeeper. When she finds out there is no housekeeper, no one will answer her questions as to who this woman was. She's also told that they don't use the bell in her room; someone will come to get her if Mrs. Brympton wants her. This is perplexing, since there is a bell in her room and it still works. She begins to piece the story together, and also has to fight off the advances of Mr. Brympton, a stocky, florid man with a walrus mustache who seems to terrify his wife. By the time she thinks she knows what is going on, she's terrified of the closed room and begins to see why her mistress is growing more nervous by the day.
Edith Wharton supposedly wrote this based on a dream she had while she recovered from the typhoid, and it seems to have a fevered aura to it. Wharton could write marvelous ghost stories, and this is as good as any she did. The adaptation is a superior one that mixes in a little levity and then hits you with a scare. Joanna David is wonderful as Miss Hartley, and Ian Collier fits the slimy character of the husband perfectly. It's my personal favorite among the episodes in the Shades of Darkness series.
Gorgeous Gothic, scrawny script
F Gwynplaine MacIntyre19 April 2004
Warning: Spoilers
"The Lady's Maid's Bell" is one of those ever-so-earnest British TV productions with all the elements that make this sort of programming so popular with the Anglophiles who watch PBS in America: a period setting, elaborate production design, a wide range of Brit accents up and down the social scale, and a script based on a story by some famous dead person. This one is based on a tale by Edith Wharton, an author whom I find extremely boring. I've tried and failed to read several of her works, but I've never even attempted to read the story on which this TV movie is based, so I can't judge how faithful the adaptation is. This review addresses only the Granada teleplay, not Wharton's original story. "The Lady's Maid's Bell" was filmed as an episode of Granada TV's 7-episode anthology series 'Shades of Darkness'. Each episode of this series was a stand-alone story, all of them spooky in tone.
Isaac Asimov once summed up the entire Gothic genre as follows: 'A woman gets a house'. Gothic novels as disparate as 'Jane Eyre', 'The Turn of the Screw' and 'Rebecca' all follow the same formula: a young woman with limited options must journey to an old grand house in an isolated location, where a strict authority figure demands utter obedience from her. And the house has a Dark Secret... "The Lady's Maid's Bell" conforms to the mixture as before, in every particular. The house even has a mysterious room, into which the female protagonist must never, ever go...
As so often in Gothic novels and films, the female protagonist supplies her own narration here. Miss Hartley speedily identifies the present year as 1902, which feels suspiciously like an addition to Wharton's text by the modern scriptwriter. Miss Hartley has spent her life in service, but she recently contracted typhoid and so has had difficulty obtaining employment as a lady's maid. (Actress Joanna David looks only very slightly gaunt and pale in her role as a typhoid victim in the anaemic Edwardian era.) She applies to several positions by post, and is accepted (sight unseen) to serve at Brympton Hall, as the personal maid of Mrs Brympton, a chronic invalid. We never learn where Brympton Hall is: judging from the accents of the locals, I'd guess West Riding in Yorkshire.
The house has all the Gothic elements. A forbidden room and a dark secret are just for starters, to be getting on with. The butler Wace is a religious fanatic, and the master of the house is a tyrant: fortunately, Mr Brympton is only ever home at weekends. Mrs Brympton sends Miss Hartley into town to fill a receipt at the dispensing chemist, and (oh, yes) while she is there, to deliver a message to a certain gentleman. (Shades of L.P. Hartley's "The Go-Between".) But the pharmacist reveals that the receipt is merely for lime water (calcium carbonate solution). Are the prescriptions merely a pretext for the messages, or is Mrs Brympton's ailment only a delusion?
As in 'Rebecca' fashion, the heroine is in the shadow of her predecessor. Mrs Brympton's previous maid was Emma, who gave 20 years' long service but died mysteriously. So then why does Miss Hartley still see Emma's ghostly figure? Some of the servants hint that they could reveal dark secrets, if they chose. (I truly hate this sort of hinting dialogue: either tell what you know, or keep silent.)
SPOILERS COMING. This telefilm makes several bad errors. The spookiest movie ever made is 'The Innocents', which has a story similar to this one. But 'The Innocents' derives most of its power from the ambiguous nature of the horror. The haunted governess sees the ghost of Peter Quint only as a distant shadow, until she sees a photo of Quint's face ... *then* she sees the ghost clearly, so we never know if the haunting is genuine or a product of her imagination. In "The Lady's Maid's Bell", Miss Hartley sees Emma's face distinctly when she first enters the house, even though they've never met before ... so we know the ghost must be genuine.
Later, Emma leads Miss Hartley onto the lawn. Emma's face shimmers weirdly, and we expect her to vanish in ghostly fashion ... but this turns out to be the director's clumsy attempt at a dissolve to a closer shot of the same image! Just then a manservant arrives, prompting a cut to Miss Hartley from a different angle, standing alone on the lawn. So Emma *must* be a genuine ghost, not a Scooby-Doo spook, because no human could have vanished from an open space so quickly.
This telefilm does have some merits. I'm a sucker for any movie depicting a maidservant tending her mistress's hair or clothing, especially if they're both in Victorian or Edwardian costume. But the kink quotient is decidedly low hereabouts. The greatest asset of this low-budget film is its primary location: the exteriors were filmed at Arley Hall, Budworth, near Northwich in Cheshire. This beautiful house and its spacious lawns are a real feast for the eye. Although filmed on a low budget, the period detail throughout this movie is impeccable. Regrettably, the Deep Dark Secret is a disappointing one. I'll rate "The Lady's Maid's Bell" only 5 out of 10.
Isaac Asimov once summed up the entire Gothic genre as follows: 'A woman gets a house'. Gothic novels as disparate as 'Jane Eyre', 'The Turn of the Screw' and 'Rebecca' all follow the same formula: a young woman with limited options must journey to an old grand house in an isolated location, where a strict authority figure demands utter obedience from her. And the house has a Dark Secret... "The Lady's Maid's Bell" conforms to the mixture as before, in every particular. The house even has a mysterious room, into which the female protagonist must never, ever go...
As so often in Gothic novels and films, the female protagonist supplies her own narration here. Miss Hartley speedily identifies the present year as 1902, which feels suspiciously like an addition to Wharton's text by the modern scriptwriter. Miss Hartley has spent her life in service, but she recently contracted typhoid and so has had difficulty obtaining employment as a lady's maid. (Actress Joanna David looks only very slightly gaunt and pale in her role as a typhoid victim in the anaemic Edwardian era.) She applies to several positions by post, and is accepted (sight unseen) to serve at Brympton Hall, as the personal maid of Mrs Brympton, a chronic invalid. We never learn where Brympton Hall is: judging from the accents of the locals, I'd guess West Riding in Yorkshire.
The house has all the Gothic elements. A forbidden room and a dark secret are just for starters, to be getting on with. The butler Wace is a religious fanatic, and the master of the house is a tyrant: fortunately, Mr Brympton is only ever home at weekends. Mrs Brympton sends Miss Hartley into town to fill a receipt at the dispensing chemist, and (oh, yes) while she is there, to deliver a message to a certain gentleman. (Shades of L.P. Hartley's "The Go-Between".) But the pharmacist reveals that the receipt is merely for lime water (calcium carbonate solution). Are the prescriptions merely a pretext for the messages, or is Mrs Brympton's ailment only a delusion?
As in 'Rebecca' fashion, the heroine is in the shadow of her predecessor. Mrs Brympton's previous maid was Emma, who gave 20 years' long service but died mysteriously. So then why does Miss Hartley still see Emma's ghostly figure? Some of the servants hint that they could reveal dark secrets, if they chose. (I truly hate this sort of hinting dialogue: either tell what you know, or keep silent.)
SPOILERS COMING. This telefilm makes several bad errors. The spookiest movie ever made is 'The Innocents', which has a story similar to this one. But 'The Innocents' derives most of its power from the ambiguous nature of the horror. The haunted governess sees the ghost of Peter Quint only as a distant shadow, until she sees a photo of Quint's face ... *then* she sees the ghost clearly, so we never know if the haunting is genuine or a product of her imagination. In "The Lady's Maid's Bell", Miss Hartley sees Emma's face distinctly when she first enters the house, even though they've never met before ... so we know the ghost must be genuine.
Later, Emma leads Miss Hartley onto the lawn. Emma's face shimmers weirdly, and we expect her to vanish in ghostly fashion ... but this turns out to be the director's clumsy attempt at a dissolve to a closer shot of the same image! Just then a manservant arrives, prompting a cut to Miss Hartley from a different angle, standing alone on the lawn. So Emma *must* be a genuine ghost, not a Scooby-Doo spook, because no human could have vanished from an open space so quickly.
This telefilm does have some merits. I'm a sucker for any movie depicting a maidservant tending her mistress's hair or clothing, especially if they're both in Victorian or Edwardian costume. But the kink quotient is decidedly low hereabouts. The greatest asset of this low-budget film is its primary location: the exteriors were filmed at Arley Hall, Budworth, near Northwich in Cheshire. This beautiful house and its spacious lawns are a real feast for the eye. Although filmed on a low budget, the period detail throughout this movie is impeccable. Regrettably, the Deep Dark Secret is a disappointing one. I'll rate "The Lady's Maid's Bell" only 5 out of 10.
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