Watched: October 19 2019

Director: Bryan Forbes

Starring: Kim Stanley, Richard Attenborough

Year: 1964

Runtime: 2h 01min

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Myra Savage (Stanley) holds seances in her house for a living, but she feels very underappreciated. With her gift she should be more famous! Luckily her “spirit guide” has an excellent idea. Why not assist in a kidnapping case and get loads of publicity?

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The unfortunate lack of local missing children will not stop this gal – if no children are willing to go missing for such a noble cause, she will just have to rope her submissive husband Bill (Attenborough) into taking care of it.

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With little Amanda Clayton safely stashed in the nursery, Myra contacts the anguished parents to offer her services. For free, of course. She would never consider making money off of other people’s misery.

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This movie is so good! It’s an intriguing and engaging psychological thriller, and very atmospheric. Thematically (and atmospherically) it would go excellently with The Haunting and The Innocents for a creepy-and-suspenseful-with-possible-supernatural-elements British triple feature extravaganza. A little Halloween tip for all you non-party people out there.

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We loved the mysterious start and the gradual exposition. The relationship between Myra and Bill is fascinating, manipulative and very unhealthy, and it is extremely well portrayed by the two stars.

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What we learned: The best laid plans… Also, does “The Swan and Edgar” still exist? ‘Cause that’s a name we can get behind! (Apologies if this is like a super-famous place that we Norwegians have somehow missed. Our cultural knowledge is vast yet limited.)

Next time: The Masque of the Red Death (1964)