By Chris Hyde

July 23, 2003

Dying of the summer heat? Here’s a couple of post World War II horror films packaged together to put a chill back in your bones.

When I wrote a piece about my favorite DVD companies a few weeks back, there were some prominent companies whose efforts unfortunately got the short shrift. The most major oversights were my complete slighting of Wellspring and my passing mention of Anchor Bay (well, I neglected Caballero and Nu Tech as well, but that’s a horse of a different color), both of whose output is of such high quality that they should never have been forgotten in this fashion. But since the deed is now done and that column has already long passed into the archives, there seems little recourse for a mea culpa but to review a recent disc from these companies to at least give them a bit of the recognition that they so richly deserve. Wellspring’s efforts for now will have to wait a bit longer for their moment in the sun, but given their release schedule it’s only a matter of time before a recap of one of their incredible Fassbinder disks hits this space. So let’s turn our attention now to a top quality dual disk brought to you by the good people from Anchor Bay: their reissue of the classic British fright films Dead of Night and the Queen of Spades.

The first disc in this excellent set, Dead of Night, is an omnibus film that is comprised of a number of separate tales helmed by different directors that are woven together through the use of an overarching story that makes them all of a piece. This sort of cinematic compendium has a long film history (the great Fritz Lang directed a film made up of short horror tales as early as 1920), but in many cases the final product ends up somewhat uneven and dissatisfying, as by their very nature they are comprised of varying viewpoints, especially when different people handle the segments. Luckily, that is not the case with this outing -— though there are certainly stories here that are weaker than others, the overall skill of the participants and the well-developed framing story make this film a steady winner from start to finish.

The story starts innocently enough in an English country house, as Mervyn Johns visits to do some architectural work. But once he gets there he is overwhelmed by a powerful sense of déjà vu, and he tells the various inhabitants of the house that he feels as if he’s seen them all before in a dream. Not only that, but he also feels as if his dream is a premonition of some ominous occurrence that will befall them if he stays in the house. All of the people there are pretty well unconcerned about that, but they’re interested enough to engage the man with witty banter and to tell a few stories about their own experiences with the supernatural. To reveal too much about the varied stories they spin would ruin much of the fun of the film, but they range from suspenseful stories about a possessed mirror, a race car driver’s eerie experiences, a ghost child and a scary ventriloquist’s dummy to lighter, more breezy fare featuring a haunted golfer. The stories all have their individual moments, but to these eyes the creepy yarn about the voice thrower’s puppet is by far the best of the lot (there are even some observers who believe that this segment was a heavy influence on Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho).

The over story that brings the multiplicity of tales together is also quite good, however, and without its unifying influence the whole of the film might easily be less than the sum of its parts. The sharp script makes it all come together, though, and the talents of the cast and crew operating here allow everything to work in a believably weird and entertaining fashion. The actors and actresses assembled are all top of the line, and anyone familiar with British films from this period will find many of these people instantly recognizable. Also of the highest caliber are the people chosen to direct the separate pieces that make up the movie: Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer, Charles Crichton and Alberto Cavalcanti. These four on their own were all capable of solid work, but here they manage to work in tandem to create a single piece of cinema that is so well integrated that you hardly even notice that different hands are helming the different pieces. Overall, Dead of Night uses a smart screenplay, sturdy helmsmanship and a talented cast to create a macabre atmosphere and to tell a story that is as engaging as it is strange.

The second offering in this set is The Queen of Spades; a film adapted from a Pushkin story that has made it to movie screens a number of times since its first appearance in Russia in 1910. The story here is altered some from the original, but the essential flavor and moralistic tone of that literary work remain. A Russian army officer (Anton Walbrook) yearns to be able to participate in the gambling games that occupy many of his fellows, but he doesn’t have the sort of cash that these sons of the aristocracy possess. But when he stumbles upon the tale of a countess (played by Edith Evans) who years before had seemingly made a deal with fate to learn the secret to winning at cards after a youthful indiscretion, he is intrigued by the tale. This interest becomes even more fervent when he discovers the aging dame is still alive, and he then enters into the shady business of falsely wooing the countess’ young companion so as to get close enough to the old woman to learn the key to her winning ways. But like many get rich quick schemes, this one has a dark side that has caused this matriarch to suffer for years —- and given the officer’s ruthlessness in garnering the luck for himself, there seems little doubt as to how this fable will ultimately play out.

Queen of Spades is in many ways mostly a romantic piece of cinema that uses its moments of terror as accents, but there are certainly enough judiciously placed fright elements to make it worthy of being called a horror film. The movie is suspenseful throughout, and though the dénouement may not be particularly surprising, the spry work of the actors and the capable direction of Thorold Dickinson makes for an entertaining little thriller. Also of note in the work are the atmospheric sets that are richly evocative of the period in which the film is set, which perfectly delineate the class-based Russian society that was to meet its downfall some short years after the heady years outlined here. Lastly, though the entire cast of Queen of Spades is quite good, special mention must be made of the stunning performance of Edith Evans, who appears here in her first sound film at the tender age of 60. Evans would go on to have a nice career in films for someone who got such a late start in the talking picture, as she would go on to be nominated for three Academy Awards during the 1960s, most famously for her supporting role in Tom Jones.

So the two films here are both of exceptional quality, and putting them together in an affordable package is a masterstroke by Anchor Bay. Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of extras to accompany the films themselves, though there are at least galleries of posters, stills, and behind the scenes shots for both features and the original trailer for The Queen of Spades is included. Transfer-wise things are better, however, as both masters have been given tender treatment and the black and white beauty of both of the films shines through without much evidence of print damage or any other ravages of time. Unfortunately, the sound mix of both productions leaves a little something to be desired, but that would appear to be more a result of the quality of the original soundtracks rather than anything that Anchor Bay is ultimately responsible for. All in all, this is a great double feature for a nice price, and the company should be commended for bringing these two creepy historic British classics back to the light of our television screens.

Lastly, since this piece started on apologetic note concerning my recent neglect of the proper respects due to the folks at Anchor Bay for their work in the DVD space, I’ll just close here with a brief note on what the company will be offering in the future. They certainly have some killer stuff coming up, beginning with The Cheerleader Collection in August that will combine the soft-core antics of The Cheerleaders, Revenge of the Cheerleaders and The Swinging Cheerleaders into one pom- pom filled package. There’s also a clutch of great Special Editions coming down the pike, beginning with the original Halloween on August 5th, continuing two weeks later with George Romero’s Day of the Dead and topping out in September with an extras laden copy of Wes Craven’s seminally brutal The Hills Have Eyes. And while the rest of 2003 certainly will see some other great releases from this outfit in many genres, every horror fan knows that the true holy grail of Anchor Bay DVDs won’t be out until sometime early in 2004: the three-disc Special Edition of Dawn of the Dead, which seems certain to be the definitive release of a brilliant film that ranks as one of the best American movies of the 1970s. Let’s just hope they don’t push that one back yet again, because if they do there may just be hordes of rabid fans besieging their headquarters looking to chew someone’s arm off. And who knows, that might even be a more ignominious fate than having some knucklehead writer leave you out of their best DVD company column.