Well Deserved Praise

Load of rubbish!!

good back-story, and good acting

An Exercise In Nonsense

Jean Linton (Patricia Dainton) is married to an unreliable, heavy drinking and would be author called David (Tony Wright) who drinks what little money he earns reviewing books and subjects his wife to a life of living in private hotels and owing rent to all and sundry. But, everything changes when Jean is left an old fashioned country house called High Winds by her Aunt Grace who has unexpectedly passed away. The house is supposedly haunted by a poltergeist that the elderly Irish housekeeper Mrs O' Brien (Anita Sharp Bolster) refers to as 'Patrick' saying that it was very protective of Aunt Grace and brought misfortune to those who tried to harm her. Jean is inclined to believe that it actually exists since furniture starts to move around of its own accord, but David is sceptical dismissing it as 'supernatural nonsense' and his only interest is selling the house to make a quick buck, but his wife flatly refuses. David begins an affair with the attractive Valerie Stockley (Sandra Dorne) who he has hired as a typist to work on his novel and her divorce is about to come through. David proposes to her and she accepts, but Jean poses a problem so the pair plan to murder her in order to be able to sell the house for the £6000 that local property developer and owner Maurice Lumley (Sam Kydd) has offered them for it. When David attempts to get Jean drunk and push her down the shaft of the house lift, the cage slams shut of its own accord. Next, he attempts to poison her hot milk, but the doorbells start ringing continuously and extremely loud when she goes to sip from it and causing her to spot that it has been poisoned. She pours it into the plants when David goes to check on the doorbells and, the following day, she visits her lawyer in London but is unable to convince him that her husband is trying to do her in. After all, who would believe her story about a poltergeist intervening to save her life from her husband's machinations? While she is away, David and Valerie make love in the house behind her back and dear old Patrick has even more tricks -and deadly ones - up his sleeve resulting in terrible consequences...A modestly effective little ghost chiller from quota quickie stalwart Montgomery Tully that seems extremely primitive today in terms of its special effects. The hauntings themselves are very basic and would not have stretched the technicians creative skills too much; in part, no doubt, to keep within the constraints of what must have been a very tight budget and hectic shooting schedule. They include a mirror shattering itself when Valerie looks into it to tie her headscarf, an armchair moving by itself (off screen mainly) and ink spilling all over David's paperwork. Hardly marrow freezing stuff although the latter features an effective little moment where David attempts to blame Mrs. O'Brien for the accident and she replies: "He (Patrick) must be very angry with you about something." A nice touch of little oldie worldy superstition there which, in this case, turns about to be frighteningly true. The performances are very good all round, it has to be said, with Tony Wright utterly convincing as the layabout 'writer' who is more interested in making a quick, easy buck than earning a decent living and Sandra Dorne who was a great femme fatale in Wolf Rilla's superior b-pic Marilyn nearly a decade previously is excellent here and works very well with Wright in their scenes together. Patricia Dainton who was the excellent leading lady in Montgomery Tully's outstanding The Third Alibi - released the same year and made by the same production company as this one, Grand National - plays her part as the wife in danger adequately and is believable as the honest, hard working girl who is lumbered with a layabout husband who is content to do nothing except live off her money while having an affair and plotting to kill her so he can get his hands on her valuable property. The climax in which the poltergeist exacts vengeance on Wright and Dorne while they are alone in the house during a thunderstorm is competently done and Tully succeeds in getting some tension and suspense from it. Praise must also go to Philip Martell's excellent music score, which adds production value and a sense of creepiness to the proceedings. All in all, The House In Marsh Road is enjoyable if you don't expect too much and makes for pleasant, undemanding entertainment as well as being a nice reminder of an era of British filmmaking that has long disappeared.

This sort of film was quite popular in the fifties and sixties.A poltergeist or ghost making its presence felt.The whole effect here is quite successful up to a point.Unfortunately this point is the climax.The poltergeist decides that it has had enough of Tony wright and his dalliance with Sandra Dorne and rolls a burning coal from an unguarded fire.It conveniently ensures that the fire creeps upstairs to where they are having a fun time in the marital bedroom.The door and windows wont open till its too late and eventually Wright and Dorne and the house are reduced to ashes.I was hoping for a rather more chilling climax.

The House in Marsh Road is directed by Montgomery Tully and adapted to screenplay by Maurice J. Wilson from the novel written by Laurence Meynell. It stars Tony Wright, Patricia Dainton, Sandra Dorne, Derek Aylward, Sam Kydd, Llewellyn Rees and Anita Sharp-Bolster. Music is by John Veale and cinematography by James Harvey.When Jean Linton (Dainton) inherits a house in the country she hopes her hard drinking novelist husband David (Wright) will settle down and make something of himself and their marriage. However, when sultry Valerie Stockley (Dorne) arrives on the scene it's not long before David's head is turned and he begins to plot the murder of his wife. Jean is in trouble, but she has an ally, the resident poltergeist of Four Winds House...Simplicity of plot and economical of running time and technical attributes, The House in Marsh Road should not be sought out by any "horror" fan craving poltergeist terror. This is a quaint and fun chiller for the most part, even with an air of jauntiness for the first half, in fact very much like The Uninvited (1944) in how the presence of a ghost is not seen as something to be outright feared. Then the mood for the latter stages of the play notably shifts into darker territory, here the dastardly David starts to put his plans in motion, something which signals time for the poltergeist to take a hand in proceedings. Which leads to a very good and genuinely edgy denouement at pics finale. It never lacks for atmosphere or period flavours, or indeed for competency of performances and direction, where although it never breaks out into the upper echelons of other classic British chillers, it's still something of a "B" chiller worthy of inspection by those who don't need to be jolted out their seats. As for "Patrick the Poltergeist", he's rightly kept off screen, or is he? One scene appears to show him? Either that or a prop guy is guilty of standing in the shot? See if you can spot the moment and judge for yourself. It's just another fun part of a movie that provides gentle chills and honest entertainment. 7/10

This nicely scary little ghost story is pretty straight-forward = in plot. A husband with a sexy mistress is trying to murder his wife, and a protect= ive (family-owned) poltergeist blocks him at every attempt. But the brief summary fails to convey some fine performances and lovely atmospherics t= hat rise above what is basically a "B" - level thriller. The women take act= ing honors -- Sandra Dorne is probably at her most-enticing ripeness as the buxom blonde divorcée who lures David Linton to his doom, and she pani= cs beautifully when trapped with her lover in the doomed house; Patricia Dainton is convincing, too, as the long-suffering wife of the promiscuou= s David. Third, for comic relief, Anita Sharp-Bolster is hilarious as the Irish housekeeper, who complains about "Patrick," whom she's named after her husband "because she never sees him" either! The black and white photography is moody and penetrating, as is the haunting music of John Veale (though it gets too loud and overrides the dialogue once or twice.= ) A hard-to-find video is available from several U.S. sources, both as "Invisible Creature" and "The House in Marsh Road."