CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES # 3 - A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS (1972)

December 07, 2023

CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES # 3 - A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS (1972)

DIRECTED & WRITTEN by Lawrence Gordon Clark based on the short story "A Warning To The Curious" by M.R. James

STARRING - Peter Vaughan as Mr Paxton, Clive Swift as Dr. Black, John Kearney as William Ager, David Cargill as Boots.

PLOT - Legend has it that on the coast of East Anglia there where once buried three crowns. These three crowns magically protected East Anglia from invasion by hostile forces. In the intervening years two of the crowns have been lost - now only one remains.

It is the 1930's and the Depression has hit Great Britain. Paxton - a bank clerk - has recently become unemployed. Paxton is an amateur archaeologist and believes that if he finds the final lost crown then he will be able to make enough money to survive. Paxton heads to the Norfolk coastal town of Seaburgh where the crown is rumoured to be buried.

Against all odds Paxton finds the crown and unearths it but in doing so he angers the unquiet ghost of William Ager - a man who made it his lifelong duty to guard the crown and still acts as it's guardian even in death.

After being haunted by Ager's spirit Paxton, with the aid of Dr. Black, decides to return the crown, but in doing so has Paxton doomed both himself and Dr. Black ?...

DIALOUGE - William Ager - "No digging 'ere !!!"

PERFORMANCES - Paxton as played by Peter Vaughan differs quite a lot from the other main characters we've seen in previous M.R. James adaptations. He's not an academic or a clergymen, neither are his actions motivated by a sense of intellectual superiority or ambition. Paxton does what he does out of sheer desperation. Paxton is just an ordinary upper working class bloke who lost his job the previous week, a man who has had the rug pulled out from under his life and is facing eviction and possible starvation. Whilst money is certainly the prime motivation for him to find the lost crown - its more out of a need for basic survival rather than greed that drives Paxton. Vaughan plays Paxton as being a likeable and humble man. A man driven by desperation whose actions cause him to become even more desparate as the story progresses.

Once Paxton has unearthed the crown and the haunting begins his despair turns into outright quivering fear as he is stalked by the crown's ghostly guardian William Ager.

Paxton enlists the help of fellow hotel guest - our old friend - Dr Black (Clive Swift) to help him rebury the crown in it's original location (he's too scared to go there alone). It's nice to see Swift return as Dr. Black and he gets a lot more to do than he did in the previous year's "Stalls of Barchester". This time round we learn a bit about Black's life outside academia - he's married, he hates being anywhere near London (a man after my own heart) and he loves painting. These are only small details but they help to flesh his character out beyond being the amateur detective/narrator that he was in "Barchester".

Dr. Black also seems to develop quite a fondness for the hapless Paxton and seems to be genuinely distraught when he is inevitably killed by Ager's vengeful spirit. At the end of the story when Black is returning home it is implied that Ager's ghost is now following him - Black knows where the crown is buried y'see and this means that he too must now be silenced...

We never see Dr. Black again, he's noteable by his absence in later entries in this series, so Ager obviously succeeds in getting him. This is a bit of a shame really as I think it would have been quite nice to see Dr. Black get his own spin-off series. Every week he could roll into some picturesque Norfolk village and uncover some ghostly conspiracy or demonic manifestation. I think it could have worked...aw well...

We also get to see William Ager himself (played by John Kearney). At first we see Ager in life, Kearney plays him as a murderous hillbilly with a "country bumpkin" accent. Ager seems weak as he wheezes and coughs constantly and looks pale and drawn - we later learn that he was suffering from consumption and it was this condition which eventually killed him.

I do find it quite amusing that Kearney bears a physical resembelence to Liam Gallagher from Oasis...

He's pretty good in the role really but he's let down a bit by some of the directorial decisions made when depicting him as a ghost. There are several scenes where we see him pursuing Paxton down a lonely beach and it just looks like Paxton is being chased by an angry Liam Gallagher. He's way too clear in shot and looks way too normal for us to fully buy him as being some shadowy spirit guardian.

Thankfully director Clark seems to realise this and we eventually get some nice blurry shots of Ager lurking in the distance. He works a lot better when we just get quick glimpses of him coupled with the sound of his ghostly hacking cough. Less is more.

SFX - There are no special effects as such but we do get some nice camera shots to depict the haunting.

Quite a few times we see Ager as an out of focus blurry figure heading towards us...

There are also shots where we see Ager's ghost lurking in the background, subtly hidden by the scenery. The only thing you can make out is his pale gaunt face. These are real "blink and you'll miss them" moments but they work so much better and are so much more chilling than when we see him up close and clear.

VIOLENCE - A Warning To The Curious is one of the more violent M.R. James adaptations. In the film's prologue we see a still living William Ager beat an archaeologist to death with a billhook when he comes close to discovering the crown...

This fate is later shared by Paxton himself when Ager's ghost catches up with him. He too is mercilessly beaten to death. We see a close up of Paxton's bloodied face as Dr. Black weeps over his dead body.

Mind you, Paxton gets it ten times worse in James's original story. In that version Ager's ghost gets a handful of gravel and stones and smashes Paxton's teeth in as he rams the stones down his throat. I wish we could have seen that on screen but it was probably a bit too graphic for a late night BBC 1 audience in the early 70's.

RATING - A Warning To The Curious is another great adaptation of M.R James's work that once more proves that you really can't go wrong with one of his stories.

This film just oozes sheer atmosphere. The outdoors photography of coastal Norfolk is once again stunning. The way its shot seems to be extremely claustrophobic even though Paxton is surrounded by wide open spaces most of the time. It's almost like the countryside itself is closing in around Paxton to consume him. You never quite know just who or what is lurking around out there. It's an agoraphobic's nightmare.

I'm giving this 4 and a half vengeful guardians out of 5. It loses half a point for some of the less effective shots of Ager but it still manages to hit home where it counts. Possibly one of my favourite M.R. James adaptations.

ART - Below are some alternate VHS/DVD covers...