Product description

Dead Of Night [1945]

Price: £4.98
RRP: £12.99 This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery
You save: £8.01 (62 %)
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Average customer rating: 4.5

Binding : DVD
EAN : 5060034576631
Label : Optimum Home Entertainment
Manufacturer : Optimum Home Entertainment
Publisher : Optimum Home Entertainment
Release date : 2006-11-13
Title : Dead Of Night [1945]
Actor : Array
Audience rating : Parental Guidance
Format : Array
Languages : Array
Number of items : 1
Original release date : 1945-09
Region code : 2
Running time : 99
Studio : Optimum Home Entertainment
Theatrical releaseDate : 1945

Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
While horror conventions may change from generation to generation, there are ideas that will scare us no matter what time period we inhabit. Dead of Night is a classic horror anthology that effectively plays on those timeless fears. Mervyn Johns stars as a man who has been summoned to a house with a group of strangers he has never met but has seen in his dreams. As they convene, he predicts certain events will happen as they do in his dreams and when they do, the other guests relate their own experiences with the supernatural, including tales of a possessed mirror, a sinister ventriloquist's dummy and an eerie premonition of death. Throughout the group meeting, the protagonist fears something horrible will happen to him and we are left to wonder what it might be. The film's final, revelatory sequence offers an unexpectedly horrific surprise. It may have been made in 1945 but Dead of Night is still spooky. --Bryan Reesman

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Ealing Classics Collection presents four films from the great British studio, which, unlike the two sets devoted to Ealing Comedy, have at first glance little in common. Apart from many of the same names before and behind the cameras, what really connects Went the Day Well? (1942), Dead of Night (1945), Nicholas Nickleby (1947) and Scott of the Antarctic (1948) is Ealing's commitment to well-written, high-quality drama realised with the best possible production values.

British patriotism at its best links Went the Day Well? with Scott of the Antarctic. The former is a wartime propaganda morale-booster that doesn't shirk from showing the cost of the conflict, but provides genuine excitement as a small German advance force take over a Midlands village--a plot later reworked in The Eagle Has Landed (1977). Director Alberto Cavalcanti handles events with neo-documentary efficiency and William Walton's score cannot fail to stir. No less a composer than Vaughan Williams scored Scott, delivering one of the finest in film history, while Ealing spared no expense on Technicolor location filming. The result is occasionally too tableau-like and historically inaccurate--the mini-series Shackleton (2002) is more commendable in this respect-–but remains a gripping and ultimately very moving drama.

The darker side of life is explored by Cavalcanti in a suitably stark version of Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, a film unfortunately overshadowed by David Lean's double whammy of Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948). Here Derek Bond is fine as Nicholas and a superb supporting cast, including Cedric Hardwicke and Stanley Holloway, ensure this is a first-rate production. Dead of Night offers one of the earliest examples of the anthology horror film, all wrapped in a decades-ahead-of-its-time framing narrative that nightmarishly twists reality inside-out. Most famous is the sequence with Michael Redgrave as a ventriloquist possessed by his own dummy, an idea later expanded to feature length with Anthony Hopkins in Magic (1978). Still unsettling six decades on, this all-time horror classic is only marred by a terrible comedy golf skit.

On the DVD Ealing Classics presents each film on its own DVD without extras. All four are in the original 4:3 ratio, in black and white, apart from Scott of the Antarctic. The audio is functional mono, and, while dialogue and sound effects are very clear, the music tracks are often distorted.

Picture quality is very variable, with Went the Day Well? being taken from an excellent print. Dead of Night, though, is constantly beset by small sparkles, with much more serious print damage being in evidence, making this a very below-par presentation for such a classic film. Nicholas Nickleby ranks somewhere in between, with a print showing various forms of constant but minor damage and offering a rather indistinct image in the darker scenes. The big budget Technicolor of Scott of the Antarctic is a little muted and the many snow scenes show a considerable amount of grain, but otherwise the print is in very good condition. --Gary S Dalkin

Customer reviews

review by: catdrake date: 2008-11-11 rating:

early portmanteau classic
The quality of the film's transferance onto DVD is poor and the dubbing in particular is suspect, but this film is undoubtedly a classic.It's apparently the earliest example of a 'portmanteau' horror film(,a film which narrates a series of separate tales).Here, an architect visits a country house and tells the guests of a recurring nightmare he's had about the house and the inhabitants, prompting them to relate a series of supernatural experiences, the creepiest of which is the last one, involving a ventriloquist (Michael Redgrave) and a seemingly independent dummy. When the tales have been related, there is an horrific climax and a disturbing twist: the protagonist seems to be stuck in a nightmarish 'groundhog day' scenario.
All of the stories are entertaining but the light hearted 'comic relief' one about two golfers fighting over the same woman is something of an anachronism. Apart from this 'blemish', and making due allowances for the film's relative antiquity, I'd recommend horror afficionados to purchase this. This is clearly a very influential film and it's hard to see how Amicus films could have proceeded to make classics like 'Vault of horror' and 'Tales from the crypt', had it not been made in the first place. A retrospective pat on the back is due to Ealing studios, who obviously weren't just dab hands at making classic comedies.

review by: moviebuff05 date: 2008-04-13 rating:

classic
i think this is a fantastic film. The quality is pretty bad which is an awful shame but the story itself still scares me each time i watch it. I decided to take myself off to my room last night with a cup of tea and this film and for the entirety of the film i was scared witless. I do admit i am scared by a lot of films but there is something so completely compelling and unlike anything else about black and white suspense and horror. I am an avid movie fan full stop although b&w still comes up tops in my favourite style or genre and this film simply regaled all my feelings of admiration for a good old classic film. Brilliant!

review by: Ernesto Lynch date: 2008-03-25 rating:

A True Classic
I first saw this incredible film as a child in the seventies and it scared me witless. As a teenager I imagined that a British black and white movie from the 1940s would be very unimpressive. How wrong I was! In fact this powerful work of art only increases in potency with age. It is a remarkable film of real psychological intensity.

Forget other films in the horror/supernatural genre made since. This is the real deal: a truly disturbing masterpiece that you will remember for a very, very long time...
A true classic.

review by: pacman date: 2007-10-12 rating:

directors .... this is how to make a great ghost film ......if only ......
as the other reviewers have stated , the quality of the actul print is pretty poor on this region 2 version , and from what i have read i may try to get the region 1 copy , but given the choice of this movie with this print or not having this movie in my ghost dvd collection would seem totally wrong . even now for its age you can imagine how scary it must have been when first viewed back in the day [ 1945 ] compared to other movies of that era .i remember as a schoolboy first seeing it on t.v. when the beeb were doing a series of great ealing movie re runs , and they had HALFWAY HOUSE as the first movie { another great little ealing ghost story } and this classic as the second . there are,nt that many movies that have such appeal and can stick in my mind but both those two and especially this classic did and for all these years as well , and now finally being able to get it on dvd and at least to watch it again , so print taken into consideration an excellent addition to any ghost collection , a must in fact , now all i need is the other classic ghost story HALFWAY HOUSE , and ray milland in the other most excellent classic ghost story THE UNIVITED to really make a classic ghost collection .

review by: date: 2007-09-16 rating:

Terror repeated
When you watch this now, and it seems a little dated, remember what Universal were doing with horror films in the 1940's. Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein etc etc. They had run out of ideas, and until Hammer came on the scene in 1957 the horror/ghost story genre was virtually dead. Well this film is the exception.

A brilliantly made horror anthology from Ealing which paved the way for the Amicus films of the 60's and 70's (Dr Terrors House of Horrors, Tales from the Crypt etc) and directly influenced the film Magic starring Anthony Hopkins in 1978. This particular section of film centers on a ventriloquist and his dummy. Michael Redgrave is outstanding as Maxwell Frere the ventriloquist and it is this story and the Golfing one that will leave you very spooked.

Another thing that will leave you spooked is the ending, which unlike most Hollywood films made in those days, and even now, is very scary indeed. When you watch this film remember it was made in 1945 and that some of the stories have been used over and over in variations in more modern films. This is the original and its very creepy.

Similar products

Went The Day Well? [1942]
The Haunting [1963]
The Innocents [1961]
Casting The Runes [1979]
From Beyond The Grave [1973]

Similar categories