The Screaming Skull - 1958 film review

The Screaming Skull begins with a chilling warning coupled with an offer of a freebie. The story, we are told, is so terrifying that we may die of fright. But if watching the film kills us, the makers are willing to bury us free of charge. Very good of them. I did feel, however, that the terror induced by this macabre opening was rather undercut by the preamble on the TV channel when we were told that the film was rated "Parental Guidance". Maybe not quite so frightening in the 21st century, then...

The premise is rather like that of a minor Rebecca. A charming husband brings his nervy young second wife to the grand country home where his first wife met an unfortunate end. However, it has to be said that the screenplay writer, John Kneubuhl, was not Daphne du Maurier, while the actor playing the husband, John Hudson, was not in the Olivier class. I did, however, think that Peggy Webber, playing the wife, did a good job, and I was interested to learn that she became a leading radio actress and is still alive today, aged 94.

It soon becomes clear that creepy things are happening at the house. There's a mysterious gardener with an obsessive devotion to the deceased first wife, and a neighbouring vicar - who turns out to be an improbably cast Russ Conway, the British pianist who had two number one hits in the charts. The soundtrack, by the way, is the work of Ernest Gold (father of the gifted singer-songwriter Andrew Gold) who also wrote the music for Exodus.

A long time ago I toyed with the idea of writing a story called The Screaming Skull after reading about some legends concerning skulls. In the end, I decided against it, although I wasn't aware of this film at the time. Horror is a tricky genre. M.R. James' stories still exert a particular magic, but Kneubuhl, whatever his other gifts, was no M.R. James. I foresaw the main plot twist, and found the story distinctly unterrifying. And even the offer of free burial wasn't original to this film....

Nina Bawden at the double

Whilst on holiday, I read a number of ebooks published by Bello, who have managed to resurrect some very interesting titles, long unavailable. Two were early works by Nina Bawden, indicative of her strong interest in crime and mystery during her apprenticeship as a novelist.

Of the two, I felt The Solitary Child was the stronger. It has distinct echoes of Rebecca, and whilst it certainly does not rank with the Daphne du Maurier masterpiece, it's sufficiently enjoyable for me to recommend it. A young and rather naive woman has a whirlwind romance with an older man and marries him. However, he has recently been acquitted of murdering his first wife, and suspicion continues to cloud his life. Soon it becomes clear that he has a number of enemies, and his bride begins to doubt his innocence.The story is neatly worked out and, I felt, psychologically plausible.

At that early stage of her writing career, it seems to me, Nina Bawden was sometimes tempted to try to increase mystification by withholding information. This is a device that can work exceptionally well, as Agatha Christie showed so many times, but I'm not sure the young Bawden was especially good at playing tricks on her readers. As a result, I felt Who Calls the Tune was a little frustrating, even though the storyline, about a troubled family in a remote part of Wales, was full of interest and kept me reading the pages. But I wasn't too happy about the ending. Christie did the same thing so much better.

Anyone who is a fan of Bawden ought to give at least one of these books a try, because they contain plenty of good, crisp writing, and some good evocations of life in rural Wales, with which she was obviously very familiar. Children who are, or claim to be, being poisoned, feature in both stories, an odd coincidence. In later life, she wrote more famous books, but these early works show a young writer of real talent and potential, a potential that was happily fulfilled. How splendid that they are now there to entertain a new generation of readers.