Reply With Quote...if it wasn't for those pesky meddling kids
rgds
Rob
…only members of this site can help me on this one - Although I reckon my film wasn’t British but American, an early ‘TV Movie’ rather than a cinema release, and a spooky one at that.
No matter, here goes. I saw it around 1969-71, and only saw half the plot because my terrified older sister (11 or 12) and myself (then about 6 or 7) were ordered up to bed because we were too scared! All I can recall is that a man inherits a house (as in all spooky stories it’s a big rambling affair), possibly from his father. Whoever it is, is aggrieved with the new home’s owner and is buried nearby.
Now, to the particulars which freaked my sister and me.
The house has a huge painting hung above the large staircase, and we see the new home’s owner passing it frequently in the film. The painting is of the house itself, and it's adjacent graveyard, where the former owner is buried (yeah, pretty arty eh?!).
Now each day, when the man comes down – or goes up, I can’t recall – the stairs the painting has been CHANGED slightly: first day a newly dug grave is seen, the next a coffin placed in the grave, the next day the coffin lid has been opened, then the next day footprints are seen leading towards the house…you get the picture? …But at this point we were told we couldn’t view it anymore and ‘to bed!’ No, it wasn’t Dead of Night, or Scooby Doo, and I’m certain its not Dorian Gray. Any answers, or even wild guesses will be greatly appreciated…????????
...if it wasn't for those pesky meddling kids
rgds
Rob
I reckon this is the first segment in the pilot film of Rod Serling's NIGHT GALLERY (hence the painting theme.) THE CEMETARY with Roddy McDowell - he pops off his uncle for his money and the painting hangs in the hall. Each night, the painting is different as described - until the coffin is empty and the old man is at the bottom of the stairs....
ghostly
SMUDGE
Smudge I am eternally grateful for this reply. I shall look into it - and thinking about it, Roddy McD sounds just right...it was probably my first viewing of Roddy McDowell that scared me and my sister so!
I don't know the film but the plot sounds like its borrowed from the spooky MR James story The Mezzotint where a menacing figure appears in a picture of a house and creeps towards it...
In 1969 they made a pilot for a new TV series called Night Gallery. Rod Serling introduced it / narrated it. It contained a portmanteau of three different stories...( similar to Dead of Night and later much beloved of Amicus ) The dead body walking closer and closer to the house each time the picture was studied was one of them..( the owner of the picture had killed / upset / or somehow pissed off his dead elderly relative and the old man was not about to take it lying down). Roddy McDowell was in it and it was called "Cemetery"...and it technically the first ever Night Gallery story.
Most notable because one of the three episodes "Eyes" was directed by an unknown called Spielberg the pilot was such a hit that a series was commissioned......... and the rest as they say is history.
The first series of "Night Gallery" is availiable on a three disc box set (apparently) and it also contains the pilot episode as an extra.
Good Hunting.
Threep.
Threep -
See my earlier post above :)
SMUDGE
Hee...hee...hee...What is it about scary movies from childhood tonight? I think this is the third post this evening I've come across that involved scary movies.</div><div class='quotemain'>David Challinor:
…only members of this site can help me on this one - Although I reckon my film wasn’t British but American, an early ‘TV Movie’ rather than a cinema release, and a spooky one at that.
No matter, here goes. I saw it around 1969-71, and only saw half the plot because my terrified older sister (11 or 12) and myself (then about 6 or 7) were ordered up to bed because we were too scared! [/b]
Anyway, I think it was Night Gallery you're remembering; although there was a gothic horror revival going on back in the late 60s/early 70s & they made a ton of them back then. Night Gallery I think was one of the very first television shows I remember, which oddly enough never scared me. It reminded me more of Halloween than anything else (the holiday, not the movie).
Salem's Lot, on the other hand... ghostly
Reminds me a bit of one of the segments in Three Cases of Murder.
Yes, the one in the museum where the chap comes out of the picture and asks for a light...</div><div class='quotemain'> Reminds me a bit of one of the segments in Three Cases of Murder. [/b]
Spookier than the Night Gallery segment, IMHO !
ghostly
eek!
SMUDGE
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