The Amazing Mr Blunden (1972)
Director: Lionel Jeffries
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A fine adaptation of Antonia Barber's novel The Ghosts, which begins with a quiet nostalgia reminiscent of Jeffries' earlier The Railway Children: a cosy suburban house, a death, and then the miraculous translation of a widowed mother and her children to a cottage in the country. The translator is a friendly ghost (Naismith), and in the crumbling old mansion where their mother is now caretaker, James and Lucy are drawn into a strange adventure where they find themselves going back 100 years to save another brother and sister from being hounded to death for their money. Handled with that sense of enchanted stillness which is one of Jeffries' great gifts as a director, the apparitions, the apprehensions, and the atmosphere of brooding menace about the house are exquisitely done.Author: TM
User reviews of this film
-
- Amy said...
- Posted on Mar 27 2008 08:41 This was one, if not my FAVOURITE films as a child - no one I know remembers it!
- Report as inappropriate
-
- Sara B said...
- Posted on Oct 21 2007 06:18 This is one of my all time favourite childhood films, I am actually really suprised that it has not been re-made, although I am sure that it would lose it's haunting quality if this were done. A superb film for all the family.
- Report as inappropriate
Cast & crew
Director: Lionel Jeffries
Producer: Barry Levinson
Cast: Laurence Naismith, Lynne Frederick, Garry Miller, Rosalyn Landor, Marc Granger, Diana Dors, James Villiers full cast
Genre(s): Children's
Duration: 99 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.



What do you think?
Post your review now