A Place of One’s Own *** (1945, James Mason, Margaret Lockwood, Barbara Mullen, Dennis Price) – Classic Movie Review 11,805

The 1945 British film A Place of One’s Own is an Edwardian ghost story starring James Mason and Barbara Mullen as an elderly couple whose young companion (Margaret Lockwood) is possessed by the spirit of a murdered girl.

Director Bernard Knowles’s atmospheric 1945 British film A Place of One’s Own is based on a 1940 novel by Osbert Sitwell, and stars James Mason, Margaret Lockwood, Barbara Mullen, Dennis Price, and Dulcie Gray. Sitwell collaborated on the screenplay with screenplay writer Brock Williams.

A Place of One’s Own is an Edwardian ghost story that stars artificially aged Mason and Mullen as Mr and Mrs Smedhurst, an elderly couple whose young companion Annette (Lockwood) is possessed by the spirit of a murdered girl.

The Smedhursts are just retired and buy Bellingham House, vacant for more than 40 years and rumoured to be haunted by the previous owner, Elizabeth, believed to have been murdered by her guardians. Mrs Smedhurst employs Annette, who is haunted by Elizabeth, waiting for her lover Dr Marsham.

Stephen Dade’s eerie black and white photography, the immaculate art direction and the light, stylish touch of director Knowles all contribute to the film’s success.

It may be small in scale, but it is elegant and haunting, with consistently fine performances.

It is part of the group of Gainsborough Pictures studio melodramas.

Also in the cast are Helen Haye, Michael Shepley, Moore Marriott, Ernest Thesiger, O B Clarence, Muriel George, Helen Goss, Henry B Longhurst, Aubrey Mallalieu, Edie Martin, Gus McNaughton, John Turnbull, and Clarence Wright.

The 1940 novel is an extended version of a short story that Sitwell had already written.

Mason wrote that when he read the script, ‘not only did I enthuse but I even asked that I might be permitted to play the role of the elderly retiree in the story.’

But it was a box-office disappointment. Mason recalled: ‘The reactions of the top brass at the studio did nothing to allay my own feeling of guilt for having volunteered my services. It was not that I was incapable of turning my hand to a character part, it was just that I had amassed what I always realised was an absurd degree of popularity, and the fan population wanted me to appear only as some heroic young lady-killer or better still lady-basher.’

And Mason disliked Knowles’s direction: ‘He had never got over Citizen Kane and still thought that it was a shortcut to success if one had the actors play immensely long sequences without any intercutting or covering shots.’

However, it is the first time Lockwood used a beauty spot on her cheek in a film, which became her trademark.

The cast are Margaret Lockwood as Annette, James Mason as Mr Smedhurst, Barbara Mullen as Mrs Smedhurst, Dennis Price as Dr Selbie, Helen Haye as Mrs. Manning-Tutthorn, Michael Shepley as Major Manning-Tutthorn, Dulcie Gray as Sarah, Moore Marriott as George, O B Clarence as Perkins, Helen Goss as the narmaid Rosie, Edie Martin as Cook, Gus McNaughton as Police Constable Hargreaves, Muriel George as Nurse, John Turnbull as Sir Roland Jervis, Ernest Thesiger as Dr Richard Marsham, Henry B Longhurst as Inspector, and Aubrey Mallalieu as Canon Mowbray, John Turnbull, and Clarence Wright.

Margaret Lockwood and James Mason also starred together in 1945 in The Wicked Lady.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,805

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