Search - Mystery & Suspense Collection: Cast a Dark Shadow/Night Train to Munich/The Red House on DVD


Mystery & Suspense Collection: Cast a Dark Shadow/Night Train to Munich/The Red House
Mystery Suspense Collection Cast a Dark Shadow/Night Train to Munich/The Red House
Genres: Horror, Mystery & Suspense
NR     2004     4hr 30min


     

Movie Details

Genres: Horror, Mystery & Suspense
Sub-Genres: Horror, Mystery & Suspense
Studio: Madacy Records
Format: DVD - Color - Closed-captioned
DVD Release Date: 08/10/2004
Release Year: 2004
Run Time: 4hr 30min
Screens: Color
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaDVD Credits: 1
Total Copies: 0
Members Wishing: 4
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Languages: English
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Movie Reviews

5 Stars for Just Being on DVD!
BobbyBlake | Florida | 08/02/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Yep. I havent seen the DVD yet, but after years of trying to locate this movie (Cast a Dark Shadow) on DVD, its wonderful to find it issued with two other movies. Cast a Dark Shadow is about a jerk who basically marries women for their money. He meets an old lady and then inherits her money, but with a catch. He ends up marrying another woman, who turns out to be his match. GREAT, FANTASTIC, DARK movie!"
Mystery and Suspense Collection - Madacy
Dirk | Omaha, NE USA | 09/18/2006
(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is an inexpensive disc from Madacy. "NIght Train..." is actually a fairly good print. While it hasn't been restored, the film quality is pretty good, with minimal scratching. The audio, like most British films of this period, is a bit below the quality of Hollywood films of the same time. Subtitles would be helpful to catch all the dialogue, but are not on the disc.
"Cast..." is not a good quality print. There is an audible hiss during much of the film, and there are some large scratches, white circles, etc. "The Red House" is much the same--very scratchy picture, and the music is a bit distorted when it gets louder.
If NTTM is your main reason for buying this disc, it's worth it. Maybe someday the other films will be released in better condition."
Three first-rate films, especially Night Train and Red House
C. O. DeRiemer | San Antonio, Texas, USA | 08/02/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)

"CAST A DARK SHADOW:
"I know who I appeal to. Freda because she's my class and Monie because she was old and lonely." That's Edward 'Teddy' Bare (Dirk Bogarde) speaking. He's a charming young man. Monie (Mona Washbourne) was his first wife, considerably older than he and quite rich. He killed her and made it look like an accident. Freda (Margaret Lockwood) is his second wife. She's strong-willed, older than he, common and is quite well off. But Teddy might be too clever by half this time

Cast a Dark Shadow is a British noir from the late classic period, as they say. It's a moody, murderous film filled alternately with sunlit days and scenes in the dark, curtained drawing room of the country house Teddy inherited from Monie. It's the room he killed her in. A lot of drama, melodrama and acting takes place in it. While the last fifteen minutes of the film nearly collapse from the weight of twists and double twists, from dramatic confrontations and from hysteria as psychological revelation, the bulk of the movie is an effective study of charming, shadowed nastiness.

This is very much Dirk Bogarde's movie. He's in just about every scene. Holding her own with him, however, is Margaret Lockwood. Through the Forties she was a huge star. She took off with The Lady Vanishes in 1938 and Night Train to Munich and The Stars Look Down, both in 1940. She was a brunette vision, slender, intelligent and with a slightly sly sense of humor lurking behind her eyes. Now at 44, her Freda Jeffries is startlingly effective, and nothing like Night Train's Anna Bomasch or The Lady Vanishes' Iris Hamilton. She's still a vision, but Freda is common and crude, with a lower class accent, a loud laugh and a firm hand with Teddy.

Cast a Dark Shadow is a modest semi-noir. Up to the last two or three scenes it's a stylish bit of murder, trickery and fate.

NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH:
While this is one of Carol Reed's first-class movies, it also owes a lot to Alfred Hitchcock and The Lady Vanishes. It was written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, who also wrote Lady, and the co-star is Margaret Lockwood, who also starred in The Lady Vanishes. The movie is a wonderful WWII chase film, with excellent performances by Lockwood, Paul Henreid and, especially, Rex Harrison.

Professor Bomasch, a Czech scientist who has discovered a new kind of armor, and his daughter, Anna (Lockwood), flee their country for Britain one step ahead of Nazi agents. The professor makes it but his daughter is captured and sent to a concentration camp. A fellow inmate, Karl Marsen (Henreid), befriends her and they manage to escape and make their way across the channel. Anna searches for her father and is directed to a seedy boardwalk song man, Gus Bennett (Harrison), who is in fact a British agent charged with protecting her father. Marsen, however, is a Nazi agent whose job is to find and kidnap the professor and return him to Berlin. This he does, taking the daughter, too, and Gus goes after them. After many adventures, including Gus bluffing his way into Gestapo headquarters as a German officer, a danger-filled journey on the night train to Munich and a rousing escape on a tram line high in the Alps between Germany and Switzerland, Gus succeeds in rescuing them and winning Anna's love.

This is a skilled, witty and suspenseful movie. Best of all is Rex Harrrison. He's resourceful, skeptical, amusing and charming. He's deliberately second rate as a song plugger, and effortlessly first-rate as a leading man.

THE RED HOUSE:
Pete Morgan (Edward G. Robinson) owns a farm by the edge of the woods. His sister, Ellen Morgan (Judith Anderson), keeps house for him. Years ago they adopted a baby when the parents ran off. Now Meg Morgan (Allene Roberts) is a teenager in high school, and she persuades Pete to hire a friend, Nath (Lon McCallister), to help with the chores since Pete is having a hard time keeping up with things. He's getting older and has a wooden leg. Pete reluctantly agrees, but warns Nath that under no circumstances is he to go through the woods to get to the farm. Pete has even hired a hand with a rifle to scare people off. Naturally, Nath goes through the woods and, with Meg, determines to find out the mystery behind a ruined, overgrown red house they find there.

This is a little gem of a movie. It starts in sunlight, moves into tangled paths and deep shadows and eventually works it way back out. The mystery is tragic and believable, and the movie moves toward the conclusion with a real feeling of growing unease.

Robinson gives, I think, another of his first class performances. Pete is a man with a terrible secret, which his sister shares. He loves Meg and wants to protect her, but he also is increasingly unpredictable and unstable.

One of the strengths of the movie is Miklos Rozsa's score. He emphasizes the moods efficiently and with great effect. The theme he came up with for Meg Morgan is one of the most innocently romantic I've ever heard.
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All three films have been in the public domain for a long time. Unfortunately, they look it. Their awful condition really detracts from the pleasure of watching these fine movies."