I know there are horrible problems around the world today, just as there are at any other time. Even so, I am insistent we live in a golden age. Just the fact that previously lost film The Ghoul could be available in pristine condition on blu-ray gives me hope for the future.
This 1933 UK production was the first picture to be labelled as “horror” in that country. Boris Karloff plays a wealthy professor who has devoted his life to an interest in Egyptology (what I can I say, folks–that’s what they called the field back then). The movie starts with him on his deathbed, where he insists he be interred with a particular amulet in his right hand. He believes this jewel will enable him to return from the grave.
This brief moment before he perishes is all the dialog Karloff will have in this feature. But that’s not to say he will be out of the film from then on out. Instead, the theft of the jewel while he is in the grave reanimates his corpse and sends him on a murderous rampage of revenge. Essentially, he is the mummy here, just as he was in the Universal series, and you have to admit the man owns that role.
His isolated country estate will suddenly have many more potential victims arrive. There’s a young man and woman who are there to see about an inheritance. These two are our hero and heroine, as well as the fodder for the mandatory romantic subplot. And, in grand British tradition, they are first cousins. Yeah, that.
There’s also a mysterious Egyptian claiming to have been a colleague of Karloff’s. No points for guessing he is not who he claims to be. Ralph Richardson is here as a young priest in what was his first film role. I found his appearance jarring, as I have only seen him before in much more advanced age.
One role I especially like is Kathleen Harrison as the girl’s roommate, who is just along for the ride. Almost every review I have read had rather nasty things to say about this comic relief role, but I felt she added a welcome element to the doom and gloom. She is especially smitten with the mysterious Egyptian, and her doe-eyed awe of him resulted in many lines I laughed at hard.
The look of this feature is fantastic, with excellent sets and lighting. Everything positively drips with atmosphere. The overall look of the film is so much like a silent movie I was occasionally surprised at time when somebody spoke a line. Some of the sets for even brief scenes have unusual elements, such as a police inspector’s office that has sagging, overburdened shelves. It is curious details like that really draw me into a film.
Most curious is how, despite this film’s age, it feels quite modern in some regards. It feels less stagey, and is easier to follow, than most other such pictures of that era. Also, the Egyptian seeking the return of a stolen relic seems to foretell more recent efforts of governments to repatriate artifacts stolen over the past centuries.
Previous releases of The Ghoul were from a Czech print of inferior quality and which had subtitles in the image. This release from Network is from a BFI print discovered behind stacked lumber when Shepperton Studios was being cleaned out. I wonder how many other currently lost marvels are waiting to be found. If some of those films are as good as The Ghoul, then the future looks very bright indeed.
Dir: T. Hayes Hunter
Starring Boris Karloff, Cedric Hardwicke, Ernest Thesiger
Watched on Network UK blu-ray (region B)