The Ghost Camera (1933)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Bernard Vorhaus

Writers:

Joseph Jefferson Farjeon (story)
H. Fowler Mear (adaptation)

Genre:

Crime | Mystery

Plot:

When a photograph is taken at the scene of a murder, the camera is tossed out of a castle window to...

Plot Keywords:

Camera | Photograph | Murder

Cast

Henry Kendall	...	John Gray
Ida Lupino	...	Mary Elton
John Mills	...	Ernest Elton
Victor Stanley	...	Albert Sims (as S. Victor Stanley)
George Merritt	...	Police Detective
Felix Aylmer	...	Coroner
Davina Craig	...	Amelia Wilkinson, a maid
Fred Groves	...	Barnaby Rudd, landlord

Runtime:

66 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Photophone System)

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) | UK:U (video rating)

Filming Locations:

Twickenham Film Studios, St Margarets, Twickenham, Middlesex, England, UK

Company:

Real Art Productions

Trivia:

Film debut of Ida Lupino.

Solid early thriller with a great concept and story.

This is a truly solid early British thriller attempt. It might not be as good as the German and American work from the same period but overall it's a solid, original and interesting enough movie.

The concept and overall story of the movie are great- and original thriller material. The movie is however really short and therefor some elements in the story felt rushed. It didn't took enough time to build its tension and mystery.

The main character of the movie, played by Henry Kendall, is at times hilarious, at other times he's borderline annoying and at times he's just plain irritating as an over-the-top English-gentleman. So no, not a great consistency of the main character. It doesn't always help to make the movie and its story enjoyable and interesting to watch.

The movie screams for a remake really. The concept and story of the movie are good, mysterious and tense enough to make a real solid thriller, by todays standards, with. The movie its story really deserves a modern update.

As a whole is a quite solid early British take on the thriller-genre, which is still enjoyable and interesting enough to watch by todays standards, mainly thanks to the really original concept of the movie that is executed well enough but not to the max. I can however still really recommend this movie to the fans of early cinema and to those this movie is perhaps even a bit of an must-see, also a bit due to the very solid and at times quite revolutionary original editing, from none other than David Lean!

7/10