CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES # 4 - LOST HEARTS (1973)

DIRECTED by Lawrence Gordon Clark 

SCREENPLAY by Robin Chapman based on the short story "Lost Hearts" by M.R. James 

STARRING  - Simon Gipps-Kent as Stephen Elliott,  Joseph O' Conner as Mr Abney,  Susan Richards as Mrs Bunch,  James Mellor as Parkes,  Christopher Davis as Ghost Boy,  Michelle Foster as Ghost Girl.

PLOT - 11 year old Stephen is an orphan. He is taken in as a ward by his much older cousin Mr Abney. Upon arriving at the family home, Stephen meets Mr Abney who appears to be a somewhat eccentric figure. On the surface he appears to be a harmless old man but his outward facade hides a darker secret. 

For Mr Abney is actually a dark alchemist obsessed with finding the secret to immortality. In his quest to achieve this state he has already murdered two children and now he is looking for a third and final victim - the unsuspecting Stephen.

Stephen himself is visited by the ghosts of the two murdered children but are they trying to warn Stephen or are they here for another reason entirely ?...

DIALOUGE  - Mr Abney - "To the some, to the chosen, immortality is given Stephen."

PERFORMANCES  - Lost Hearts features a great performance by Joseph O'Conner as the amoral alchemist Mr Abney. Outwardly Abney seems like a bumbling, slightly fussy, avuncular figure. He's the "odd uncle" who comes round at Christmas and leaves the whole family bemused by his behaviour. There are several scenes early on where Stephen (Gipps-Kent) just seems utterly baffled by his strange behaviour to the point where the butler Parkes (a brilliantly grumpy portrayal by James Mellor) tells Stephen that "it's just Mr Abney" and that he'll "get used to him".

O'Connor gives Abney fussy bird-like mannerisms - he's twitchy, constantly moving, he flutters around onscreen, for quite a large man he moves like he's as light as a feather. Apparently O'Conner based his performance on that of Werner Krauss as Dr Caligari in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920). Once aware of this fact you can definitely see the similarities - the fluttery way that he moves captures that flickering scratched jumpy look of old film.

This is all just surface dressing to Abney though, for under this bizzare yet seemingly harmless exterior lurks something far darker. It's when Abney's mask starts to slip that we begin to see the child murdering monster that he hides from the world. At first it's just little moments - an odd word or gesture that seems uncharacteristically cold or cutting that then quickly gets smoothed over by his act. As the story progresses and Abney moves closer to killing Stephen the pretence erodes completely so that by the time of the final act Abney becomes desparate and physically forceful as he pours a glass of drugged wine down a terrified Stephen's throat as he gets ready to sacrifice him at the appointed hour. It's a mesmerising performance - you can't take your eyes off O'Conner whenever he's onscreen. He literally owns this production.

As for Gipps-Kent as Stephen - he does a good enough job. Child actors in the 70's where never great (certainly not to the standard you get these days) but...yeah...he's actually pretty good. He's a little bit "stage school" in places but he's definitely believable as the slightly precocious but blissfully innocent Stephen. My favourite parts of his performance come in the aforementioned scenes where he just seems puzzled by Abney's weird behaviour. The look on his face can be quite amusing at times. He also does terrified pretty well which is handy when you consider the story's subject matter.

Sadly Gipps-Kent was to die at the age of 28 from a drug overdose, his desire to be cast in more "adult roles" never being fulfilled due mainly to his exceptionally youthful looks. It was a sad waste of a young life and a promising actor who was in too much of a hurry to get old... and as a result of his own actions never did. If only he'd have waited... I'm sure those roles would have been his eventually.

A mention must be made of Christopher Davis and Michelle Foster as the two ghostly children. They don't get much - if any - dialogue to speak. For the most part they're completely silent. Its all in the way that they stiffly move, thier long nailed hands crossed over thier chests in a funerary style as they hide thier mutilated bodies. Its also the creepy grins and facial expressions that they have. 

The scene where the ghost boy appears in Stephen's bedroom playing the Hurdy Gurdy that he loved so much in life is VERY creepy and unnerving. It's the combination of the discordant jangling music and the corpse like fixed grin on the boys face that does it. Surely the most effective "creepy kid" scene since the Glick brothers decided to start floating outside bedroom windows in "Salems Lot".

SFX - Not a lot of effects work to speak of. As with other M.R. James adaptations in this series it's more about the atmosphere of creeping dread than anything else. The ghost kids get some OK make-up work, looking slightly decomposed without crossing the line into full on Zombie mode...

VIOLENCE  - The two children are mudured off-camera by Abney many years before we join the story. We do get to see thier gaping chest wounds at one point in a rare gory moment for this series of films. Abney apparently cut thier hearts out and consumed them in his bid for immortality he now just needs a third heart (Stephen's) and the spell will be complete...

The ghost children arrive in the nick of time to save Stephen's life and get thier revenge on Abney. They seemingly entrance him and then take his sacrificial dagger from him. He ends up being stabbed to death with his own knife - his own heart is then presumably removed in a nice slice of poetic justice but this is only implied, never actually seen...

RATINGS - Another highly successful adaptation of James's work from the good old BBC. This one had the potential to fall apart more readily than the previous adaptations having as it does the need for lots of child actors but thankfully this doesn't prove to be the case.

It's well acted, INCREDIBLY atmospheric and has lots of genuinely unnerving moments that WILL stay with you. I'm giving it 5 dead Victorian children out of 5. Well worth a look.

ART -

Above is a Pan edition of "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" which features the original story, Below is a later Penguin edition of James's stories with "Lost Hearts" headlining.

Below is an early DVD release of some of James's TV adaptations, one of which is Lost Hearts.