The Ghost (1963)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Lack of good storyline.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The Ghost (1963) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Italian shocker has Dr. Hitchcock (Elio Jotta) dying but his doctor Charles (Peter Baldwin) is battling hard to try and extend his life. So Dr. Hitchcock thinks. In reality Charles is having an affair with Hitchcock's wife Margaret (Barbara Steele) and the two are trying to kill him. Once dead, the new couple feel they have a fortune coming to them but soon they believe the dead man's ghost is after them.After the success of THE HORRIBLE DR. HITCHCOCK, director Riccardo Freda and Steele teamed up for this film. Even though one of the main characters here is named Dr. Hitchcock I don't think they two films are really connected, although some horror fans give some pretty good theories as to why they are. Either way THE GHOST is a great looking picture with a lot of very good things in it but at the same time there are a couple major issues that keep it from being much better.I'll get the flaws out of the way first but there's no question that there's way too much melodrama going on. I say that because there are way too many scenes at the start of the picture where we're waiting on the doctor to die and I personally felt it took too long to happen. Once the two lovers begin to fight I felt there were a few too many scenes that got dragged out without adding much to the picture. The 95-minute running time certainly drags at times due to the slow pacing.With that said, the film does offer up some very good atmosphere that can only be found in these Italian Gothic pictures. Freda does a nice job at building up this atmosphere and he certainly makes a very good looking picture. Another major plus are the performances with both Baldwin and Jotta doing nice work. The real star is of course Steele who steals the picture as the double crossing wife. Add in a couple nice twists throughout the film and THE GHOST is worth watching.

I'd read that THE GHOST (English title for Lo Spettro) was a sequel to THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK. It has the same character names - in some cases but in almost every case, the character from HICHCOCK is either played by someone different from the first movie or has a slightly different name than they had in the first movie. I honestly don't see how you can call it a sequel because it seems to have no direct connection to HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK other than a couple of actors returning from the first movie. However, I am getting away from the point, which is that you do not have to see the first movie to enjoy THE GHOST. I've now seen both and they can stand alone as films. I am only speculating but I suspect it may have originated as a sequel to HICHCOCK (both were filmed back to back over a span of 12 days if I am not mistaken) or maybe someone tried to make it a sequel to HICHCOCK during the dubbing. Who knows? Having seen both films, I personally like THE GHOST much better than HICHCOCK. Both are very pretty to look at with great cinematography and awesome sets. I think THE GHOST is a better told story and moves at a swifter pace I think. I'd not really tried very hard to track down THE GHOST after seeing HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK. HICHCOCK suffers from the fact that director Riccardo Freda got behind schedule and removed 10 pages from the script in order to stay on schedule. The American distributor removed another 10 minutes from the finished film and that kind of renders the final film very difficult to understand. In fact, I didn't really understand it until I read a long analysis of HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK on a fan site which basically explained what the film did not. In contrast to HICHCOCK, THE GHOST was apparently filmed as written. I was lucky enough to be able to see what appears to be an intact copy of the film complete with a murder sequence that must have seemed pretty graphic to viewers in 1963. It seemed graphic to me in 2010. One review of this film called it "almost bloodless" so I assume the film was heavily cut, for theatres as well as television. The copy I saw had a scene so bloody, I was shocked to find it in a film released in 1963, but then again, maybe people then didn't see the same film I saw recently. With Freda and probably most of the crew long dead, I guess we may never know if these cuts were only for the English releases or if they were inflicted on the Italian copy as well. If you are wondering why I praise the film so much, here are a few reasons. For starters, the story is excellent. The actors are dubbed so it's hard to judge their performances but the characters are pretty well drawn for a dubbed foreign film and all the production credits like music score, make-up, special effects, sets, cinematography are all top drawer. Like most Italian horror films from the 1960s, it starts off a little slow but give it a chance. If you manage to see an uncut print like I did, you will be very satisfied with the twists and turns that come fast and furious. I honestly got caught off guard by this movie. I may be dense but I didn't see some of the things in this film coming ahead of time, and I've watched horror movies all my life. Director Riccardo Freda proves he was definitely a better than average talent when he had the schedule, the script and the right actors. All the stars aligned for this one. I think it's Freda's masterpiece...easily his best horror film (I've seen this, HICHCOCK and TRAGIC CEREMONY). It's a shame that the credits call him "Robert Hampton." He should have had his real name on this since I think it's a movie he would be proud of. Now, here is the only thing I do not understand about THE GHOST and that is why this film is not commercially available in it's uncut form. There are budget DVDs of it out there usually featuring a transfer from some old battered 16mm TV print and most of those are cut. THE GHOST is now one of my all-time favourite examples of the golden age of Italian horror films and ranks right up there with the best works from Mario Bava and Antonio Margheriti. I can only conclude this is another sad case of being unable to locate the original negative or not being able to find a usable and uncut copy of the film. THE GHOST is one of the most entertaining and satisfying examples of Gothic Italian motion picture horror and does not deserve it's relative obscurity. I'm just glad I waited until I could see an uncut print of it. It's not in the best condition but at least it is complete. Don't miss this one. THE GHOST is well worth whatever trouble you have to go to in order to see it. Hopefully someone will give it a pristine and restored release to DVD or Blu-Ray. Someday it will be recognized for the fine film that it is.

Riccardo Freda's "Lo Spettro" aka. "The Ghost" of 1963 is yet another delightfully uncanny Italian Gothic Horror film starring the wonderful Barbara Steele (my favorite actress), and while it cannot possibly compare to the absolute highlights in Steele's career, such as Mario Bava's masterpiece "La Maschera Del Demonio" ("Black Sunday", 1960), Roger Corman's "Pit and the Pendulum" (1961, also starring the great Vincent Price) or Antonio Margheriti's "Danza Macabra" ("Castle of Blood", 1964), this is another mesmerizing experience that no lover of Gothic greatness can afford to miss. "Lo Spettro" is a sequel to Freda's earlier Gothic Horror film, "L'Orribile Segreto Del Dr. Hichcock" ("The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock", 1962; they obviously left out a "t" in order to avoid legal difficulties), also starring Steele, which I haven't yet seen. Her character is named 'Margaret' in this film whereas the name was 'Cynthia' in "Dr. Hichcock. This film doesn't require having seen "Dr. Hichcock" , however.Scotland, 1910: The brilliant, but critically ill, wheelchair-bound Dr. Hichcock (Elio Jotta), who needs to take lots of medications against his mysterious disease, is working on a serum to cure paralysis. His beautiful young wife Margaret (Barbara Steele) is having an affair with his assistant/colleague Dr. Livingstone (Peter Baldwin), however, and the two do not intend to wait for the old Doctor to pass away by natural reasons. Shortly after his funeral, creepy things begin to happen in the uncanny mansion...As mentioned above, the ravishing Barbara Steele, is my favorite actress, and she is once again great here. In my humble opinion, no other actress was ever capable of blending incomparable beauty with a genius for the uncanny as it is the case with this unchallenged Goddess of Gothic Horror, and no other actress ever will. Under the solid direction of Riccardo Freda, Miss Steele plays yet another typical role with typical greatness. As the credited director of the first (post-WW2) Italian Horror film, "I Vampiri" of 1957, Freda deserves praise as one of the pioneers of Italian Horror, though it must be said that it was actually the great Mario Bava (my choice for the greatest Horror director of all-time) who completed that gem and who is arguably responsible for its greatness. Besides our beloved Barbara, the rest of the cast is also very good, especially Elio Jotta is great as the sinister Dr. Hichcock. William Baldwin is good enough as Dr. Livingstone, as is Harriet Medin as the housekeeper, and the cast furthermore includes Umberto Raho, whom Italian Horror fans might recognize as a regular supporting actor in many films (including Margheriti's "Castle of Blood", Bava's "Baron Blood" and Ubaldo Ragona's "The Last Man on Earth" starring Vincent Price). The film is almost entirely set inside Dr. Hichcocks eerie, castle-like mansion, which is a terrific setting for old-fashioned Goth-Horror indeed. Franco Mannino's score, which mainly consists of an eerily beautiful theme that is replayed throughout the film, greatly increases the film's rich atmosphere. Overall, "Lo Spettro" is not one of the greatest films in Barbara Steele's filmography, but it still is a very good and creepy Gothic Horror film that none of her fans could possibly afford to miss. Barbara Steele is once again stunningly beautiful, and brilliantly sinister - I simply cannot find enough words to adequately praise this wonderful lady. Barbara, we worship you!

As you might expect, this film is really quite similar to Riccardo Freda's earlier horror flick "The Terror of Dr Hitchcock", although for my money; I'd say this one is slightly better. The two films share a director and a lead actress in common, as well as a lead character name. This film firmly fits into the 'Gothic' side of Italian cinema, which Steele often starred in, and Freda makes excellent use of this style with some real standout cinematography. It became clear that Riccardo Freda was, in fact, a hack; as it turned out that the great Mario Bava did most of the work on a lot of his films, and his later stuff - Tragic Ceremony and The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire to name a couple - was a million miles away from being brilliant. This film would appear to be Freda at his best, therefore, and it's actually not bad. The plot centres on Dr. John Hitchcock; a cripple who wants to die. His wife is, naturally, having an affair with her husband's doctor, and pretty soon the two of them conspire to murder Dr Hitchcock for his money. However, they didn't bargain for him haunting them after his death...The film's title suggests that it's a ghost story, but I would say that The Ghost is more of a mystery chiller. There's not a great deal of real bona fide horror, and to be honest; I felt the film was a little too talky and would have proffered it to be a bit more visceral. The film's main draw is, obviously, Barbara Steele and the 'Queen of Horror' looks great throughout the film. The decor and set design is great too, and these allow Freda to build an oppressive and macabre atmosphere, which benefits the plot line quite well. The main problem with the film is the fact that a lot of it feels really amateurish. The dubbing is atrocious (even more so than usual) and some of the things the characters say are ridiculous. Whether or not that's down to the translation, I don't know. The climax is the best part of the film for me. Of course, it's not a completely sense-making ending and there are a few holes left; but it's a nice twist at least, and it does justify the shortfalls of some of the rest of the movie. Overall, I won't go as far as to say that The Ghost is a horror classic; but it's good entertainment, and fans of Gothic horror will enjoy it.