Classic Movie Review: The Haunting (1963)

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The Haunting (1963)

Directed by: Robert Wise.

Written by: Nelson Gidding based on the novel by Shirley Jackson.

Starring: Julie Harris (Eleanor Lance), Claire Bloom (Theodora), Richard Johnson (Dr. John Markway), Russ Tamblyn (Luke Sanderson), Fay Compton (Mrs. Sanderson), Rosalie Crutchley (Mrs. Dudley), Lois Maxwell (Grace Markway), Valentine Dyall (Mr. Dudley), Diane Clare (Carrie Fredericks), Ronald Adam (Eldridge Harper).

I’ve said before that I’ve never been one for ghost stories – I don’t believe in ghosts, and for the most part, ghost story movies don’t much scare me, because it’s the same thing again and again – and unlike the horror movies that really do scare me, I can never project myself into those situations – never really feel that fear, so it all becomes an exercise. That’s probably why it took me so long to watch The Haunting from 1963 – considering my many to be the greatest ghost story movie of all time. And now, having seen it, I can only agree with that assessment – but with a caveat. It’s certainly one of the greatest of its kind ever made – but it works that well because it may not be a ghost story at all.

The movie is based on Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, and is about a group of four people, who go to the damned house to “study” it for a few days. The house is already old, but has been cursed ever since it was built – its owners die mysteriously, or are driven mad, etc. The leader is Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson), who is a real doctor, who sometimes

indulges his interest in the paranormal, much to the chagrin of his wife and those around him. He is joined at the house by Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn) – who will one day inherit Hill House, and more important two women. Theodora (Claire Bloom) is a psychic. Eleanor (Julie Harris), the real protagonist of the movie, doesn’t have any special skills – but is sensitive herself, believing she has already had contact with ghosts in her childhood.

The movie is about these four people in the house together, as strange things start happening. All of those things feed into Eleanor’s already shaky psyche – so much so that the movie can be read in two very different ways – one that the house is legitimately haunted, and the other being that it is all a projection of Eleanor’s increasing mental breakdown. It is also quite possible that Hill house isn’t haunted – that Eleanor is – and she brings those ghosts along with her.

The film was directed by Robert Wise – who made it between two films for which he’d win Best Director Oscars – West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965) – although this film couldn’t be more different than those big budget, all singing, all dancing epics. This is a pared down horror movie, shot in beautiful, spooky black-and-white, almost all in that house, with just these four people. The “ghosts” in the film are nothing but sounds – persistent knocking, perhaps a door handle jiggling, and cold spots in rooms. The film could easily have been made on the cheap.

All of those tricks that Wise and his crew work – and wonderfully so, even if they have become a cliché in the decades since. They work in part because they are at the service of a story that is less concerned with ghosts, than in its characters. Russ Tamblyn is in fine form as the cynical, rich playboy who wants to dismiss everything. Johnson gives off the right air of fatherly concern and intelligence. But it’s Bloom and Harris are particularly great. Bloom barely tries to hide the fact that she is playing Theodora as a lesbian – it is what drew her to role in the first place, and it’s perhaps another example of people not taking horror films seriously, so you can sneak in things you wouldn’t get away with elsewhere. It isn’t a judgmental performance either – but one in which Bloom is very in tune with her character. All of these characters, and how they act though, end up feeding into Harris’ increasing breakdown – sneaking up on her. Harris and Bloom are truly great in the film.

That is what I will remember about The Haunting. Yes, Wise and company devise brilliant strategies to keep the tension up, and to scare you with nothing more than some clanging pipes. But like all great horror films, there is more here than that – it digs deep into Eleanor’s fractured, repressed psyche – which may be worse than the ghosts.

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