THE WOMAN IN BLACK (1989) - the British TV adaption

Daniel Radcliffe's new movie is hotly anticipated. The Woman in Black is presented by the new incarnation of Hammer Productions, opening in cinemas February in the UK, US and most of Europe. But this isn't the first adaption of the story by any means...

Susan Hill's original novel was first published in 1983, then adapted as a British TV movie in 1989. In that same year, the stage play based on the book arrived in London's West End. The play has been running ever since, popular as a guaranteed spooky evening and turned a little-known ghost story into a huge success and a now a major movie.

The Woman In Black at The Fortune Theatre, London - website.

In readiness, I've revisited the TV version, which was released on DVD in the US in 2000, but now out of print...

THE WOMAN IN BLACK(1989, UK, TV)

Between the World Wars, a young lawyer travels to a remote seaside village to conclude the affairs of a recently deceased widow. But local people are afraid of the old lady's mansion and no-one else pays any attention to the distant figure in black that he sees everywhere...

ITV obviously wanted something pretty damned scary as their Christmas ghost story that year, it first played on Christmas Eve! It certainly has some genuine jolts, but not enough to sustain the feature-length running time. Many other scenes should really be scarier, but the haunting gets repetitive. The stranger's make-up doesn't work for me, either.

This is all despite a good cast headed by Adrian Rawlins (below) as the young lawyer. Considering that Daniel Radcliffe has taken this role in the new film, it's a strange coincidence that Rawlins has since been in several Harry Potter movies, as James Potter. Bernard Hepton is the biggest name but underused. I was delighted to see John Cater (Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter, The Abominable Dr Phibes) in a short fraught role.

 

The script should have been a good one, from Nigel Kneale, whose previous TV adaptions made him the obvious choice for this. The Woman In Black also echoes aspects of the haunting in his superb original script for The Stone Tape (1970).

The use of locations is impressive enough and the period-feeling is fairly good for TV, helped by being completely shot on film. But the key locations of the mansion and the causeway weren't nearly daunting enough, the backstory not clear enough to maximise the creeping fear.

Therefore I'm optimistic enough to say that the remake has plenty of room to really improve on a filmed adaption of this story.

According to the Wikipedia entry (which has spoilers), the TV version was only shown twice before getting a limited VHS and DVD release. With a recent problem over licencing rights, this version is unlikely to be shown again or re-released.
 
That leaves the windblasted field completely clear for the Daniel Radcliffe version...

 

THE GOLEM (1920) - a must-see for horror historians

THE GOLEM
(HOW HE CAME INTO THE WORLD)
(1920, Germany, Der Golem - Wie Er In Die Welt Kam)

A classic of German silent cinema and a highly influential early horror film, especially on James Whale's Frankenstein. The superhuman, lumbering, mute monster on the rampage owes more to this movie than Mary Shelley.

The Golem is activated by an old Rabbi to persuade the King to give the Jewish community a break. But while his intentions are good, the power of such a creature is tough to control... The Medieval age of this legend reminds us that Jewish people have been relegated to ghettos for centuries. The Golem movies served as a reminder that it was happening again.

Paul Wegener is one of the earliest icons of horror movies, also starring in The Student of Prague (1913) as The Devil, and in The Magician (1926) as an Aleister Crowley/Dr Frankenstein combo. Here Wegener appears as the Golem for the third time - the earlier films only survive in fragments (see my overview of the other early Golem movies). His portrayal is a prototype of 'the robot who develops human feelings'. The make-up looks convincingly like clay, even from a distance.

The Rabbi summons the Golem to life by invoking a demon with what looks suspiciously like black magic (can all Rabbis do this?). Other key players are his frisky daughter, the sorcerer's apprentice and the King's emissary, who does more than deliver messages...

I'd not been very impressed with this film after watching it on VHS, initially drawn in by evocative production photos. I foolishly assumed that there was a German village somewhere that actually looked like this! I hadn't counted on an old European silent movie really going to town on the construction of entire streets, towers, archways and a colossal main gate. It starts as a small fable but builds up into an epic!

Finally seeing a decent restoration, on DVD, I could more easily follow the complexity of the story and enjoy the detail of the production design. For instance, in the Rabbi's house, there's a staircase shaped like the inside of a huge seashell, that somehow doesn't look out of place.

The set design isn't as expressionistic as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, but there isn't a straight line in sight, recalling hand-sculpted, primitive architecture, but with a menacing edge. It could easily be a full-size corner of Halloweentown from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The cinematography is impressive, besides the visual effects (probably done in-camera). One static shot starts on a wide shot, then a character creeps right up to the camera to show us something hidden in his hands, only a few inches from the lens, and then returns to the back of the set. An impressive follow-focus just to avoid cutting to a close-up.

Comparing the Eureka DVD (at top) to the UK VHS release (above), the intertitles are certainly an improvement on simple electronic white captions. While they're now elaborate, gothic and suitably scratchy, they aren't original. This is probably unavoidable because of the age of the film, but a note to explain what is from 1920 and what isn't would have been appreciated. Especially as they use elaborate CGI tricks that place text into the action - on pages of old books, as letters and a fluttering parchment, all digitally constructed and animated, but not as strict recreations of the original shots. These new close-ups of text also crucially miss out the character's signatures so we don't know who they're from.

Another difference from the VHS version was a scene during the invocation ritual - lightning flashes are now visible (reminiscent of the arcing electricity in Frankenstein's lab). Also, a crucial close-up of the Golem smelling a flower has been changed to a frontal angle that catches the action better. A fly lands on him in both of the angles, indicating that two cameras were used in filming (usually one negative for Europe, one for overseas markets). The DVD restoration also adds a welcome coloured tint that changes with every scene.

The UK region 2 DVD from Eureka also includes an impressive overview on expressionism in silent German cinema, illustrated with wall-to-wall clips. Overall it's an impressive-looking restoration, but I'd have wished for some pointers as to what had been reconstructed and what was original, especially as the film is a touchstone for film study.

JAWS filming locations, part 1 - Edgartown: Amity

Knowing that we were going on holiday in the area and that a detour to Martha's Vineyard was easy enough, we absolutely had to go location-hunting for Jaws. Most of the film had been shot there, interiors and exteriors.

Martha's Vineyard is of course different from how Amity Island appears. It's quite large, with several towns. It's history is in whaling, not sharks, with the island of Nantucket just to the east - the opening location for the events of Moby Dick. Ferries, large and small, arrive from all directions from the mainland to several different docks. Amity appears to be quite isolated, but the fast ferry from Hyannis took us less than an hour.

In preparation for a home-made tour, we watched the film and read the paperbacks (see this previous article about the making of Jaws). We were only there two full days - Day 1 was spent in Edgartown, where we stayed. I picked up a copy of Memories of Martha's Vineyard - a map inside confirmed additional locations that we could visit next day. We hired a car for Day 2 and visited all compass points of the island. For those with more time on their hands, there are bus routes over most of the island, as well as coach tours.

Edgartown was used as the hub of the fictional Amity Island. This is where most of the buildings and street scenes were shot. The dock area has been heavily remodelled since the movie, but the tiny car ferry where Police Chief Brody locks horns with the mayor is still operational. This is also where Jaws had a production office. All these locations are only a few minutes away from each other, on foot.

AMITY TOWN HALL

Edgartown Town Hall stood in for Amity Town Hall. 

In the meeting room farthest from the street, the big clock and the curved desk were in the film

Just inside the Town Hall main entrance - note the corridor and floor tiles

The delicatessen is between the Town Hall and the crossroads

An original prop from the movie inside the delicatessen

AMITY MAIN STREET

Amity 'Main Street' - the crossroads where Chief Brody gets caught up with the marching band - turn left here to get to the Town Hall 

This bank at the crossroads is good for getting your bearings



Turn around and go uphill from the crossroads
- this road leads to the 'Amity Police House'

The gatepost (bottom left) was in the shot where Brody leaves the police house from this side entrance and walks (left to right) on a mission to get sign-making supplies

Street view of the Amity Police House (now a private residence)

Across the road from the Amity Police House
is this impressive tree, there at the time of filming

The bike shop in between the Police House and the crossroads

Also on this street - this house stood in for the Amity newspaper office

Back at the crossroads, turn right to go to the docks, or straight ahead to see the 'office'.
The shop you see on the left is where they run the Jaws Walking Tours

The trees behind the crossroads (seen behind the marching band) - leads towards the Jaws Production Office

Jaws production office - front door

Production office - front door

Production office - side entrance

DOCKSIDE

Sheriff, you're going to need a much bigger boat...

Edgartown harbour as it is now

The Edgartown Gallery building influenced the design of Quint's fishing shack (built on the other side of the island)

The gallery is just behind the car ferry
- they avoid showing it clearly in the film

Side view of gallery - as seen from the ferry

CAR FERRY

Pricey for such a short ride, but the road's washed out

You can just see the Edgartown lighthouse in the background

Getting on the ferry - gallery building in the background

Perhaps Spielberg sat here...

On the Chappaquiddick side - Edgartown docks and ferry in the background

Edgartown lighthouse on Chappaquiddick 
- one of five lighthouses on the island

These photos probably appear meaningless to anyone who hasn't seen the movie, and also fairly meaningless even if you have. The memorable action in the film takes place on beaches, no longer recognisable, and at sea, with only the horizon visible in the background. But the visit gave me a great appreciation of how much was done with so little. Of course it means a lot personally to visit the location of a movie that made such a lasting impression 35 years earlier. But really, for anyone to connect with the story, all you have to do is find a beach and be brave enough to enter the water.

On the next part of this tour of Amity Island we'll head south, to the beach, and west to where Quint lived...

JAWS filming locations, part 2 - South and West: bonfire beach and Quint's dock

JAWS filming locations, part 3 - North and East: Brody's house, State Beach

A Jaws-themed Walking Tour is run from Edgartown, click here for details.


This website has a simple hitlist of the best locations - on Movie-Locations.com


This site on IGN was invaluable for before and after pictures.

( All photographs in this post are copyright of Mark Hodgson and David Tarrington © 2011 )