House in Marsh Road
A glass of milk – so calming, so pure.
Mothers give it to their children. Kids leave glasses for Santa. A husband hands one to his wife to help her relax.
Wait. Take go back to that husband. If you’ve seen the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Suspicion, you’re probably feeling a bit uneasy.
In a famous scene from that 1941 film, shadows and darkness ominously move across the face of actor Cary Grant as he carries a glass of milk upstairs to his wife’s bedroom where she looks anxiously at the drink. Why is she hesitating?
Grant is Johnnie Aysgarth, husband to wealthy Lina McLaidlaw (played by Oscar winner Joan Fontaine). The film has raised the question of whether he’s married her for love or money and his new interest in poison isn’t helping quell Lina’s concerns. No wonder she looks at the milk like it’s on fire – or worse. Her expression mirrors our thoughts: Is there poison in the milk? Is he trying to kill her?
I couldn’t help thinking about that masterful scene after rewatching a similar one in a quiet little black and white horror film called House in Marsh Road (1960).
There’s a hubby, a glass of milk and a wife who also controls the money. But in Marsh Road, there’s no doubt what the husband is up to: Kill the wife, get the house, the money and his mistress. Despite his motives being perfectly clear, the film remains impressively effective and has a fantastic twist that takes it into Monsters and Matinees territory.
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I first saw House in Marsh Road three ago after discovering a series of classic movies from a British distribution company called Renown Films. They were newly streaming on Amazon Prime Video (they also stream now on Tubi) and I had never seen or even heard of any of the films except The Trollenberg Terror (1958) which we know in the U.S. as The Crawling Eye.
The movies are low budget, of various genres and without stars. My expectations were low, but it turned out that there were a few gems with creative plots like House in Marsh Road.
The film was a compact 70 minutes and had a fun plot description that caught my interest: A loving wife inherits some property and hopes it will be the fresh start her and her husband need, but the house has other plans.
House in Marsh Road is part thriller, part ghost story. It’s even-tempered for most of its short running time, setting up the plot through its characters who are easy to know because they are who they say they are. And we learn that right away.
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The film opens by introducing us to married couple Jean (played by Patricia Dainton) and David Linton (Tony Wright) as they’re inspecting a shabby boarding house room. The writing in this scene does a very good job in quickly telling us about them. David is a struggling author, hard drinker, a bit of a con man and a player (watch when he walks by a pretty woman) who lives off his wife. He drinks away the little money she makes at a dress shop, so they run from rooming house to rooming house when the rent is overdue. “What a way of living,” she says, clearly losing her patience with him and their way of life.
In this initial scene, David offers to pay the new landlady upfront, but she is so impressed by the fact he’s an author and his thick wad of bills, she says there’s no need to pay now. His fake money works every time.
“Everyone is willing to give you credit, if they think you’ve got money,” the cocky David says to Jean who isn’t amused.
Luckily their housing situation is about to improve as Jean inherits a house in the British countryside by the whimsical name of Four Winds, Witherley. She has a few childhood memories of it, so she immediately feels at home. In true David fashion, he sees it in terms of dollar signs yet makes disparaging comments about the old-fashioned place. That’s strike one, David.
As the happy Jean explores the house, a door slams in David’s face. Boom.
Say hello to Patrick, David. That’s what the Irish housekeeper Mrs. O’Brien calls the ghost who comes with the house (he’s named after her husband because he’s also “invisible”).
Patrick doesn’t take kindly to humans who put down his home, nor does he like how David speaks to Jean. As the talkative Mrs. O’Brien shares, Jean’s aunt called Patrick a poltergeist which suggests he’s a malevolent spirit, yet she also believed Patrick would never harm her, nor “anyone belonging to her” which would include Jean. (I wonder why? I would love to see the prequel to this film.) Patrick will leave others alone – if they don’t make him angry. (We’re looking at you David.)
For much of the film you can call Patrick a protective poltergeist or even the playful poltergeist, though I know that’s a contradiction in terms. Patrick likes to tease Jean by doing things like moving chairs in hopes she’ll play with him (she does). “Dear Patrick, I do wish you could stop playing jokes,” she smiles while moving a chair back in place.
With David he’s more like a nasty prankster making a plate fall off the wall near David when he dismisses the idea that Patrick exists. (Strike 2, David.)
* * * * *
Jean takes care of the house and the garden. She’s happy. “Four Winds means something to me,” she says and she won’t part with it.
David is miserable, spending his days at the local pub called The Plough. That’s where an estate agent offers him a hefty sum for the house and provides the name of a typist to help with his book. Bonus: Mrs. Valerie Stockley is “quite a dish,” David is told.
And that she is – as well as a soon-to-be-divorcee. Yes, there’s an immediate attraction between the two and if a horror film can have a femme fatale, she’s it. Valerie (played by Sandra Dorne) seems nice enough and is drawn to David, but she’s also tempting, teasing and sees him as a means to an end.
But she has standards. She won’t be David’s mistress. She also wants to remarry after her divorce and that takes David out of the running for her affection because he is married. (Sounds like she’s implying he should do something about that pesky wife.) Oh, and there’s the issue of money, too.
With Valerie, David says he’s drawn like a moth to the flame while the selfish cad bemoans his marriage. If only Jean wasn’t around, he would have money and Valerie.
Be careful, David, Patrick knows all. (Is this strike 3? I’ve lost count.)
This all plays out in a straightforward way without filler material, allowing the film to mosey along in a way that feels a bit unexciting despite the greed and infidelity, but gets us to where we want to go. (It is a haunted house movie after all.)
For example, ghosts in movies are usually seen or heard even if it’s only as the whisper of the wind or a shadow on the wall. Not Patrick. Oh, we see objects move a few times but that’s about all. Patrick isn’t much of a force in the film until that milk gets warmed up – then look out. Our mundane little ghost story catapults into full-on poltergeist mode.
David’s refusal to believe in Patrick’s existence makes him blind to warning signs like that falling plate and a mirror that violently breaks as Valerie gazes at her reflection. (The fact that Valerie returns to the house after that is puzzling. I would run and never look back.)
Meanwhile, Patrick looks out for Jean. He throws one of David’s desk drawers and its contents on the floor where Jean finds a letter signed “V.” It reads: “Darling. Thanks and thanks again for the twenty pounds, now I know you love me.”
Twenty pounds? The look on Jean’s face is priceless – she knows David stole it from her and she finds proof that he did.
There is a great scene when the two women finally meet while wimpy David hides. We love Jean as she stands up for herself and demands what has been stolen from her – and it ain’t David. Keep the hubby and give me back my money, she tells Valerie. Valerie learns what we already knew: Loverboy is broke and a liar.
But Valerie, it turns out, is in love and David’s response is to blame Jean for telling the truth.
“I could have murdered her,” he says.
“Why don’t you,” the angry Valerie screams at him. “Why don’t you break her silly little neck?”
If we thought Patrick was mad before, just wait.
* * * * *
Ah, back to that glass of milk. Stir in an overdose of sleeping pills and it still looks pure and white. No one will know, David thinks.
The tension builds as David carries the glass upstairs in a darkened hallway and into the room where his wife is resting. Jean’s nerves are on edge by an earlier “near accident” and David urges her to drink the milk and “aspirin.” Her intuition tells her something is off but he’s persistent.
Each time she raises the glass to her lips, strange things happen in a most unique way. Something is setting off warning bells but is anyone listening?
It’s a taut, thrilling and clever sequence but it’s not the film’s ending. As strong as it is – I remember sitting on the edge of my seat when I first watched it – it’s not the most fiery and intense scene in the film either.
The true nature of ghosts, like people, eventually comes out. Even the odd poltergeist with a nice side has his limits.
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Trivia notes
- Actor Tony Wright who plays David was married to actress Janet Munro (Trollenberg Terror, Darby O’Gill and the Little People).
- Director Marshall Tully didn’t do many genre movies, but his last two films were The Terronauts with Simon Oakland and Terror Beneath the Earth, both made in 1967.
- House in Marsh Road was not theatrically released in the United States, but it was part of the Amazing ’65 syndicated television package released in 1964 by American International Television.
Here’s the link to my original story on Renown Films in my Monsters and Matinees column for Classic Movie Hub.
– Toni Ruberto for Classic Movie Hub
You can read all of Toni’s Monsters and Matinees articles here.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever and is a writer and board member of the Classic Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and led the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in the spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto.
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