Ghost Story

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Cohen</B></div> <div> <B>Music.................Phileppe Sarde</B></div> <div> <B>Producer...........Burt Weissbourd</B></div> <div> <B>Based on book by Peter Straub</B></div> <div> <B>Special Visual Effects by Albert Whitlock</B></div> <div> <B>Special Effects by Henry Millar, Jr.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Dramatis Personae</B></div> <div> <B>Ricky Hawthorne...Fred Astaire (Easter Parade, The Towering Inferno)</B></div> <div> <B>John Jaffrey......Melvyn Douglas (The Changeling, The Vampire Bat)</B></div> <div> <B>Sears James.......John Houseman (The Babysitter, The Fog, Our Town)</B></div> <div> <B>Edward Wanderley..Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (Gunga Din, Twilight Zone)</B></div> <div> <B>Alma/Eva..........Alice Krige (Barfly, Chariots of Fire, Sleepwalkers)</B></div> <div> <B>Don/David.........Craig Wasson (Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Schizoid)</B></div> <div> <B>Patricia Neal.....Patricia Neal (Caroline?, Hud, Run Stranger Run)</B></div> <div> <B>Milly.............Jacqueline Brooks (The Entity, Without a Trace)</B></div> <div> <B>Gregory Bait......Miguel Fernandez (Monkey House, Lifeforce Experiment)</B></div> <div> <B>Fenny Bait........Lance Holcomb</B></div> <div> <B>Young Guys</B></div> <div> <B>John Joffrey......Mark Chamberlain</B></div> <div> <B>Ricky Hawthorne...Tim Choate (Def-Con 4, The Europeans,The First Time)</B></div> <div> <B>Edward Wonderley..Kurt Johnson (Sole Survivor)</B></div> <div> <B>Sears James.......Ken Olin (30 Something, The Game of Love)</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Critique</B><B>: Fine production values, tight direction and outstanding acting (what else with such a cast) combine to produce a first rate horror flick. Alma's tub scene and her general dissolution are absolutely riveting. Fred is awfully dapper even in 1981. Houseman and the other superstars are brilliant as the septegenarian chowders. The Bates boys weren't developed much. Apparently much of that was left on the cutting room floor. Small wonder when anything the other actors did was fascinating. Krige as Alma/Eva particularly was positively haunting. The nightmares of the chowders all through their lives were Eva whispering to them from her watery grave. Injustice and deceit are surely the essence of horror. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Plot Summary</B><B>: An old man mutters in his sleep that he can't believe it...no pulse. It's a troubled dream. A ghost story is told by Sears (Houseman) to our distinguished cast. A human voice is heard in a graveyard and a scratching, as though someone is alive still in his grave. The worthies decide to break up their meeting of the chowder society. A woman lies naked on a bed and a man asks her who she is. He turns her over and sees she's partially decomposed--in a startle, he falls to his death. He awakens to hear that his twin brother has had an accident in NY. Don's stiff necked father doesn't want to hear his theories about his brother's being murdered and certainly didn't want to hear that Don had slept with David's fiance. Later, though, father is contrite. Astaire has bad dreams and claims to his wife that they have been up to black magic. Don's father, Edwin, stumbles in a dream blizzard after his lost son, David. The same horrifying decomposed face haunts him as he crosses the bridge--and he stumbles over the side. The man who goes to check it out hears a woman's voice giggling from somewhere. Don finds a picture of the young chowder society with a blurred woman's face. Rick (Astaire) goes to a dilapidated house and hears a woman giggling. He finds two urchins in the house who are in contact with a woman--supposedly the lady of the house--but Rick is adamant that there is none. He finds that this urchin, Gregory Bait, had escaped from a mental institution and and was a member of a cult in California.  Don shows Rick the black and white photo and Rick tells Don that they all may be in trouble. Don gets a visit from the madman Bait. He leaves Don with a blue locket from his "benefactor". Don comes into a chowder meeting and buys his way in with a ghost story. Don tells of a teaching job he had in Florida. THe secretary seduces him right off the bat. Things go all right until Alma gets playfully dumped in the bathtub. It appears water isn't this bird's cup of tea. When Alma says she wants to be married in Don's home town against his wishes, her actions become more and more erratic. After breaking it off, Don calls David who has taken up with Alma, and tells him Alma isn't real--when you touch her she's cold. soon afterward, David falls to his death. The chowders aren't sure what to make of this. Mille hustles them away. John dreams of a woman with no pulse who suddenly sits upright and reaches out to him. Now what happened to the woman in the waiting room? John has a heart attack, and the woman apparently took his pills. "Eva" shows up at the last moment to gloat. The remaining chowders sit with Don. We get 1931 events of the chowders with Eva Galley. The drunken chowders show up at Eva's place. Inevitably, an accident occurs and they've got to hide the body. The geniuses head to the Dedham pond with gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes, dumping the car in. Of course, The stunned Eva awakens just as the car goes down. Don and the remaining Chowders go to the house to flush out the cultist and the child. When Don breaks his leg, Sears goes for help. Ricky finds Eva drawn in the dust on a window. Sears' ride into town doesn't go well, what with visions of corroded Eva and attacks by urchins. Has Eva been alive in the pond all these years?</B></div> </td> </tr></table></body>