| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Science-Fiction |
|
|
| Horror |
|
|
| Fantasy |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE CANTERVILLE GHOST
Rating:  ½
USA. 1944.
Director – Jules Dassin, Screenplay – Edwin Harvey Blum, Based on the Short Story by Oscar Wilde, Producer – Arthur L. Fields, Photography (b&w) – Robert Planck, Music – George Bassman, Makeup – Jack Dawn, Art Direction – Edward Carfagno & Cedric Gibbons. Production Company – MGM.
Cast:
Charles Laughton (Sir Simon de Canterville), Robert Young (Private Cuffy Williams), Margaret O’Brien (Lady Jessica de Canterville), William Gaigan (Sergeant Benson), ‘Rags’ Ragland (Big Harry), Reginald Owen (Lord Canterville), Donald Stuart (Sir Valentine Williams), Elizabeth Risdon (Mrs Polverdine)
Plot: In 1634, Simon de Canterville is about to fight a duel, but instead he flees the scene and runs back home. Simon’s father hides him as his opponent pursues. His opponent suggests that if Simon is not hiding behind a curtain, then Simon’s father let the wall be bricked up. His father allows the wall to be bricked up, continuing even when Simon reveals himself, ashamed at Simon’s cowardice. Over the next three hundred years Simon becomes one of the most famous ghosts in England. In WWII, Lady Jessica, the six-year old current descendant of the Canterville line, allows the Canterville castle to be used to house American GI’s come to aid in the war effort. But when Simon’s ghost appears to scare them, the GI’s instead turn the tables and scare Simon. But soon Jessica and Private Cuffy Williams befriend Simon and come to realize that Cuffy is a long-lost descendant of the Canterville line. With this realization comes the hope for Simon to be laid to rest, something that can only happen if one of the notoriously cowardly Cantervilles can conduct an act of bravery.
Oscar Wilde’s short story The Canterville Ghost (1887) has been filmed a number of times, usually as tv movies. (Indeed this is the only version to date to have been made for cinema screens). This one was made at the height of Hollywood’s great era of light comedy fantasy.
The Oscar Wilde short story is a droll comedy about a ghost’s frustrations in trying to scare a group of vulgar Americans who have taken over his haunted hall. But the film version reads more as a variant on The Ghost Goes West (1936) than it ever does Wilde. Most notably it has been updated into the then contemporary midst of WWII. Rather than a group of vulgar noveau riche Americans buying the hall it is now American GI’s stationed in the castle during the War. And there is a whole new subplot, one that has been stolen directly from The Ghost Goes West, about the hereditary Canterville cowardice and Simon’s ancestor needing to conduct a heroic deed (involving helping stop an about-to-explode Nazi bomb). About the only connection between the film and the story now is the name of the ghost and his relationship with the young girl. Although, like Wilde, the film also makes a good deal of play on British-American cultural differences with a lot of jokes about clumsy GI’s learning the delicate art of tea-drinking or the young Jessica perceiving all Americans as Cowboys and Indians, while there’s also a fine dance sequence in the middle where the GI’s introduce the jitterbug to the staid Brits.
It all makes for an amiably enjoyable light knockabout comedy. There are some quite amusing scenes with the GI’s turning the tables and scaring the ghost wearing sheets and gas masks. The title role is played by the great character actor Charles [The Island of Lost Souls (1932), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)] Laughton. His rolypoly figure in a set of fake whiskers that make him look like a Cheshire Cat, Laughton hams it up and plays broadly and if nothing else shows he is having a good time.
Other versions of The Canterville Ghost have been made in 1966, 1974, 1985, 1986, 1996 and 1997. All are made-for-tv movies. All of these also follow this film’s lead in making the film cozy and cuddly rather than returning to Wilde’s droll comedy of manners.
Copyright Richard Scheib 2001
|