CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES # 1 - WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU (1968)

DIRECTED & WRITTEN by Jonathan Miller based on the short story "Oh Whistle and I'll Come To You My Lad" by M.R. James.

STARRING  - Michael Horden as Professor Parkin,  Ambrose Coghill as The Colonel,  George Woodbridge as Hotel proprietor,  Nora Gordon as the Proprietess.

PLOT - Whilst taking a winter holiday in coastal Norfolk, Professor Parkin - a crusty old Cambridge academic - finds an ancient graveyard perched on the edge of an eroding cliff. Upon investigating one of the partially exposed clifftop graves he discovers what appears to be an old whistle made of bone with a strange inscription upon it. Pocketing the whistle he walks back to his hotel but has the strangest feeling that somebody or something is following him...

Arriving back at the hotel, Parkin translates the inscription - "Quis Est Iste Qui Venit" as "Who is this who is coming ?" Parkin blows the whistle but it appears to make no sound.

From this point on Parkin is plagued by nightmares of being chased down the beach by a disembodied entity. The feeling of unease grows when the chamber maid points out that somebody has been sleeping in the second bed in Parkin's room - even though he is the room's sole inhabitant.

Who or what is stalking the Professor and when will it make it's move ?...

DIALOUGE  - Professor Parkin - "There are more things in Philosophy than are dreamt of in Heaven or Earth".

PERFORMANCES  - This TV play is more or less a one man show. Other characters do appear but only fleetingly. The lion's share of the story is carried by Michael Horden as the bumbling Cambridge don Professor Parkin. To place the success or failure of the piece entirely on the shoulders of one actor is a big ask, thankfully Horden proves himself to be more than up to the task.

At first Parkin is shown to be fussy, bumbling and highly eccentric. He's a man who seems to live entirely in his own head. Always theorising about everything he sees around him, preoccupied to such a point that he seems to possess very little in the way of actual social skills. He mainly communicates to others in grunts and mumbles (a trait shared by the Hotel's owner - when these two characters are onscreen together it almost becomes a form of surreal near silent cinema). Occasionally - mainly when talking to his sole friend The Colonel (Ambrose Coghill) - Parkin will become more animated and wax lyrically about his latest observation and theories. He comes over in these scenes as being very smug and self satisfied, endlessly patting himself on the back for his latest pearl of wisdom.

As the story progresses and the haunting of Parkin begins to gather pace, we see this intellectual veneer begin to crumble. Parkin spends a couple of sleepless nights drifting in and out of sleep plagued by nightmares and the sounds of creaking in the old hotel room - is it just the sounds of the building settling at night or is it something else ?

These scenes are particularly effective. Anyone who has spent a sleepless night in a strange building will know exactly what's going through Parkin's head at this point.

Eventually, matters come to a head. One night, Parkin witnesses the bedsheets in the unused bed opposite start to form into the shape of a figure. Parkin seems to completely regress into a childlike state - he stares in wide eyed stark terror at this ghostly manifestation, only able to make bizzare grunting noises as he sucks his thumb like a small child. The man of science has been completely broken, his entire sense of the rational world and his place within it has been shattered. Leaving behind only a frightened baby - a man in his most primitive and basic state. It's a wonderful performance.

The apparition is disturbed by the Colonel who rushes into the room presumably having heard the commotion. The ghost reverts back to being a simple bedsheet and Parkin can only say repeatedly the words "Oh no...oh no...oh no." Parkin appears to be in a completely shell shocked state but even as he repeats this refrain you can see his rationality starting to kick back in. By the time he says his final line "Oh no...NO." you can tell that he's already started to dismiss the occurance in his own mind. No doubt Parkin will claim it was all a dream just for the sake of his own fragile sanity. No doubt he'll bugger off back to Cambridge University the next morning (a few days earlier than planned perhaps). There's also ABSOLUTELY no doubt that he'll never ever go looting ancient old graves again (or stay in near deserted off season hotels either).

The film ends on a final freeze frame of Parkin's craggy features just as that sense of rationality starts to reassert itself coupled with that lingering, nagging doubt. Horden completely knocks it out of the park.

SFX - There's very little in the way of special effects as we would understand them today.

The entity on the beach that haunts Parkin's dreams is glimpsed only briefly - sometimes as a shadowy figure in the distance, othertimes as a dirty sheet blowing in the wind filmed in slow motion. This sounds like it would be incredibly shit on paper, but in fact these scenes are eerily effective. It's an example of good camera work and brilliant sound design filling in and pasting over the visual cracks.

At the play's climax we get to see the bedsheet ghost. It's again pretty low tech (it's just a bedsheet being pulled into a vaguely ghost like shape). As with the dream sequences, it all comes down to how its filmed, and again its done in such a creepy way that you find yourself believing in it regardless. Sometimes less really is more...

VIOLENCE - There's absolutely no violence in this at all. Its all about the mood and atmosphere which this has in spades. In the original M.R. James short story the bedsheet figure attempts to strangle Parkin before it's interrupted by the Colonel. That doesn't happen here (presumably down to budgetary restrictions) but it doesn't really need to either as the scene is already effective enough as it is. A physical attack would have just felt like overkill and been at odds with the overall mood.

RATING - This is an excellent little TV film. It's black and white photography of the bleak Norfolk coastline is stunningly beautiful and atmospheric. Michael Horden's central performance is great and holds the whole thing together. It's stark, moody and completely hits all the right spots when it comes to delivering a sense of creeping dread.

Overall I'm giving this 4 and a half traumatised college dons out of 5.

POSTER/DVD ART -

The film is included on a DVD/Blu Ray boxset of the BBC'S "Ghost Stories For Christmas" which is available in several versions...

Below is M.R. James's original book "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" where "Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You My Lad" saw it's first publication. This cover depicts the bedsheet ghost's attack on a terrified Parkin...

While this later edition shows the beach spectre that Parkin has nightmares about...

If you've never read M.R. James's stories then I'd highly recommend picking up a copy as they are an essential read for any fans of classic horror.