Michael_Elliott 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.

Andy McGregor An adulterous wife (Barbara Steele) impatiently awaits the demise of her moribund husband to inherit his wealth and mansion. Her dalliance with his personal doctor, virtually in plain sight, eventually tempt them both to bring about his premature death. Unfortunately, things soon start going bump in the night and their now public relationship rather quickly disintegrates as they become consumed by greed, guilt and suspicion. The whole sorry affair is ended abruptly by another murder and the inevitable plot-twist this genre seems to demand.Although I respect Freda and his pioneering greatness for Italian horror cinema, I found this rather poor quality suspense film pretty slow and predictable. The story is so transparent, I had worked out all the plot details within the first 15 minutes! Visually, the film is very interesting though. There are some very creative shots which help in creating a moody, Gothic atmosphere. The cast are capable enough, with particular mention to the husband's lawyer. But it is Barbara Steele who is the big name here; her at once vulnerable beauty and femme fatale guile give her such charisma, her on- screen presence lend as much to her performance as any of her acting skills do. However, in this film, I felt she could have did better in that department.This murder mystery blends in to many of the others of the day and has nothing to offer of considerable value that makes it stand out from the rest. Not that it is a bad film though, rather it is a tame and vaguely entertaining piece which will do nothing more than amuse for 90 odd minutes.

Bezenby Don't you just hate it when your housekeeper starts speaking with your murdered husband's voice? And it's simply impossible to get them ghost blood stains out of your duvet! Don't even mention those bloody wheelchairs that move about on their own...These are some of the many problems facing Italy's favourite Scouser, Barbara Steele, after she manages to convince her lover to finally bump off her emotionally crippled, and also physically crippled, husband cripple John 'Cripple' Surname.It's a case of what came first, John's séances and messing with poisons or Babs' affair with the doctor. You'll have plenty of time to mull this over because this film takes thirty-five minutes to get anything remotely spooky. Although you do get to see how messed up this situation is for everybody.Once John's bumped off and buried, it's time to find his treasure! The problem is that a little 'being dead' doesn't seem to put John off, as he keeps appearing everywhere, things move about, and his spirit is seemingly using the housekeeper as a glove puppet.Is it all real or some sort of ruse? It's worth waiting to find out as we get a pretty grim ending where one character is brutally and graphically set about with a straight razor (then burned!) and the rest of the cast suffer pretty horribly too (except a smug priest).Slow at first, but then the twists and atmosphere get more impressive as it continues on. Barbara Steele gets a lot to do here so that always helps.

MARIO GAUCI This highly-regarded example of the Italian Gothic Horror style had eluded me until now; even so, having caught up with it at long last, I still wasn't done with the 'Curse Of THE GHOST': the Retromedia DVD proved faulty, with a glitch around the one-hour mark (where the image skipped and the audio dropped out) and then experienced complete freezing after 88 minutes - so much so that I had to finish the film off on another player! This was after a public domain copy I rented from Hollywood when I was there in late 2005 (which, on a hunch, I decided to check before watching) reverted to the Main Menu midway through the climax!!Anyway, the film itself is undeniably a highlight of the genre and one of Freda's best (which he made in just 12 days): a follow-up, not a sequel, to his previous collaboration with star Barbara Steele - THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK (1962) - despite the re-use of that notorious character's surname. In the earlier film, too, Steele had been overshadowed by a delightfully manic turn from Robert Flemyng but, here, she lives up to her iconic status as the Queen Of Gothic Horror: few actresses have managed to replicate her sensual mix of wickedness and vulnerability; as for the actor playing Hichcock this time around, who looks a bit like Howard Vernon, he's not too bad - if no match, ultimately, for Flemyng.Like I said with respect to Hammer's FEAR IN THE NIGHT (1972), the plot twists aren't very original - but they make for a great ride regardless; besides, one could just soak in the colorful visuals (even if the print involved features a lot of wear and tear!). Incidentally, the film is rather gory for its time (witness the 'ghost' exhibiting its decaying flesh and the brutal razor murder, with its wonderful device of having blood dripping across the camera lens to simulate the victim's POV), but the lush score (actually a collection of compositions by Francesco De Masi, Franco Mannino and Roman Vlad - billed under one Americanized name, Franck Wallace!) and a reasonable quota of chills (the creepy scenes where the doctor speaks through his faithful and vaguely sinister housekeeper - played by the ubiquitous Harriet White Medin - who, conveniently, doubles as a medium and the various 'apparitions' - wheelchair stumbling down the stairs, dangling corpse) are certainly par for the course...as is, after all, the film's decidedly languid pace.The deftly ironic climax is very effective - as a self-satisfied Hichcock expounds on his clever machinations while the immobilized Steele looks horridly on, fully knowing that she'll be blamed for the housekeeper's death and, worse still, that she killed her lover for no reason (i.e. he didn't betray her by stealing the jewels, as she had mistakenly assumed, and these were now once more in Hichcock's hands). The English dubbing isn't too bad considering; however, given the story's Scottish setting, it's odd that only one voice actor would deem it fit to attempt a pertinent accent (i.e. the solicitor who reads Dr. Hichcock's will) - which then causes it to seem unintentionally amusing alongside the less heavy inflections of his fellow dubbing artists!While Freda is often accused of being indifferent to his films (which he often did purely so as to recoup his gambling losses!), he was undoubtedly a pioneer: not only making the first Italian horror effort, but his masterful use of color in the Dr. Hichcock pictures certainly pushed the genre into that corner - after a solitary stab at it by Giorgio Ferroni in MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN (1960) - as few gothics were shot in black-and-white thereafter (notably three films featuring Steele herself, namely CASTLE OF BLOOD [1964], THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH [1964] and NIGHTMARE CASTLE aka THE FACELESS MONSTER [1965]); certainly, Freda's protégé Mario Bava followed his example...and gradually took over the genre!