Jez Conolly and David Owain Bates
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780993238437
- eISBN:
- 9781800341968
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9780993238437.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter evaluates ‘Christmas Party’, the first of two stories directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. The story is told from the perspective of teenager Sally O'Hara (Sally Ann Howes) who relates a ...
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This chapter evaluates ‘Christmas Party’, the first of two stories directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. The story is told from the perspective of teenager Sally O'Hara (Sally Ann Howes) who relates a spooky encounter that she had at a festive gathering. During a game of ‘Sardines’, after spurning the amorous adolescent advances of fellow partygoer Jimmy Watson (Michael Allan), she finds herself in the high attic reaches of the party's large country house setting where she happens upon a weeping child dressed in Victorian clothes. Sally comforts the child, who identifies himself as Francis Kent, and sings him to sleep before returning to the party downstairs, only then realising that she has just seen a ghost. The chapter assesses ‘Christmas Party’ in relation to the very English tradition of the festive ghost story and charts how the rendering of Sally's tale negotiates the territory of adolescent liminality.Less
This chapter evaluates ‘Christmas Party’, the first of two stories directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. The story is told from the perspective of teenager Sally O'Hara (Sally Ann Howes) who relates a spooky encounter that she had at a festive gathering. During a game of ‘Sardines’, after spurning the amorous adolescent advances of fellow partygoer Jimmy Watson (Michael Allan), she finds herself in the high attic reaches of the party's large country house setting where she happens upon a weeping child dressed in Victorian clothes. Sally comforts the child, who identifies himself as Francis Kent, and sings him to sleep before returning to the party downstairs, only then realising that she has just seen a ghost. The chapter assesses ‘Christmas Party’ in relation to the very English tradition of the festive ghost story and charts how the rendering of Sally's tale negotiates the territory of adolescent liminality.
Jez Conolly and David Owain Bates
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780993238437
- eISBN:
- 9781800341968
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9780993238437.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Released a matter of days after the end of the Second World War and a dozen years ahead of the first full-blooded Hammer Horror, the Ealing Studios horror anthology film Dead of Night featured ...
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Released a matter of days after the end of the Second World War and a dozen years ahead of the first full-blooded Hammer Horror, the Ealing Studios horror anthology film Dead of Night featured contributions from some of the finest directors, writers and technicians ever to work in British film. Since its release it has become ever more widely regarded as a keystone in the architecture of horror cinema, both nationally and internationally, yet for a film that packs such a reputation this is the first time a single book has been dedicated to its analysis. Beginning with a brief plot-precis ‘road map’ in order to aid navigation through the film's stories, there follows a discussion of Dead of Night's individual stories, including its frame tale (‘Linking Narrative’), a consideration of the potency of stillness and the suspension of time as devices for eliciting goose bumps, an appraisal of the film in relation to the very English tradition of the festive ghost story, and an analysis of the British post-war male gender crisis embodied by a number of the film's protagonists. The book includes a selection of rarely seen pre-production designs produced by the film's acclaimed production designer, Michael Relph.Less
Released a matter of days after the end of the Second World War and a dozen years ahead of the first full-blooded Hammer Horror, the Ealing Studios horror anthology film Dead of Night featured contributions from some of the finest directors, writers and technicians ever to work in British film. Since its release it has become ever more widely regarded as a keystone in the architecture of horror cinema, both nationally and internationally, yet for a film that packs such a reputation this is the first time a single book has been dedicated to its analysis. Beginning with a brief plot-precis ‘road map’ in order to aid navigation through the film's stories, there follows a discussion of Dead of Night's individual stories, including its frame tale (‘Linking Narrative’), a consideration of the potency of stillness and the suspension of time as devices for eliciting goose bumps, an appraisal of the film in relation to the very English tradition of the festive ghost story, and an analysis of the British post-war male gender crisis embodied by a number of the film's protagonists. The book includes a selection of rarely seen pre-production designs produced by the film's acclaimed production designer, Michael Relph.
