House of the Long Shadows *** (1983, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, John Carradine, Desi Arnaz Jr, Richard Todd, Sheila Keith) – Classic Movie Review 2837

Four film ghouls gather in House of the Long Shadows.

Four iconic horror film stars Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Carradine star together in director Pete Walker’s horror parody. It gets an extra star just for that.

It was advertised as ‘The screen’s masters of terror together for the first time.’ And indeed it turned out to be the only movie the four starred in together and marks the last time Cushing and Lee appeared together. Price, Lee and Cushing had only ever previously starred together in Scream and Scream Again (1970).

Producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus put together the right package for their 1983 Cannon Films movie. Michael Armstrong’s screenplay is based on the venerable antique 1913 novel Seven Keys to Baldpate by Earl Derr Biggers (August 26, 1884 – April 5, 1933), creator of the Chinese American detective Charlie Chan.

Desi Arnaz Jnr also stars as Kenneth Magee, a young author who bets Sam Allyson (Richard Todd) $20,000 that he can stay alone in an old dark mansion for 24 hours and write a classic Wuthering Heights-style spooky novel.

He goes to a deserted Welsh manor house and finds it is unexpectedly not vacated. Lord Elijah Grisbane (Carradine) and his daughter, Victoria (Sheila Keith) are there on this dark and stormy night and soon there are new arrivals too: Lord Grisbane’s sons Lionel (Price) and Sebastian (Cushing), Magee’s publisher’s secretary, Mary Norton (Julie Peasgood), and Corrigan (Lee), looking to buy the property. And all of them are rather weird.

There are a few chills and a few laughs but, be warned, the horror quartet don’t get enough to do. Arnaz Jr seems ill at ease, and the jokey script and uninspired direction lack the necessary verve.

Amazingly, this is the sixth of seven movie adaptations of this material. George M Cohan adapted the novel into a hit Broadway play and then starred in a 1917 silent film version, and a 1935 stage revival. The novel was then filmed as Seven Keys to Baldpate in 1935 and remade in 1947, and also adapted into two films with different titles, House of the Long Shadows and Haunted Honeymoon (1986).

The film was shot at Rotherfield Park manor house in Hampshire, England.

Elsa Lanchester was supposed to play Victoria Grisbane, but she had to decline through ill health and Sheila Keith took over in her fifth and final appearance in a Walker-directed film.

Also in the cast are Louise English as Diane Caulder Richard Hunter as Andrew Caulder and Norman Rossington as the Station Master.

The score is by Richard Harvey.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2837

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