THE WOMAN IN BLACK @ 35

Arthur, a young solicitor, is tasked with settling the deceased Mrs Drablow's affairs out on the west coast of England. On the way to her funeral, he steps in to save a child from death via a trucking accident. Then, having been told there would be no mourners, spies a woman in black in the church who vanishes as quietly as she appeared. She's there at the burial and the walk through the cemetery. When he points her out to the local lawyer he refuses to look, falling into a panic. Local carrier Ketwick gives Arthur a lift to the  deceased woman's house, across a causeway, mostly submerged in seawater. He goes to the house and starts work among a mess of papers. Then he hears the sounds of a carriage crashing into the water and a child's screams. When the fog lifts there's nothing there. And he thought it was going to be a boring routine job in the country.

This adaptation of Susan Hill's early '80s novel was produced by the ITV network in the U.K. in 1989 and remains the best filmed version. The 2012 take with Daniel Radcliffe retools the subtleties of the source material to feature angry local yokels and chucks unearned jump scares at a rate of something like ten minute intervals. It was made to fit its time and feels far more dated than this older version. Watch it after you've seen this and you will never watch it again.

Nigel Kneale's adaptation of the novel compacts much but provides a clear logical narrative line. Kneale is a past master of mixing perceptions of time and history and manages to solve the epistolary form of the novel's middle section by using era-appropriate recording technology, wax cylinders, to allow Mrs Drablow's voice to provide essential narration. Adding electrified light to the 19th century house in the mid-'20s shows Mrs Drablow's wealth and canniness. She is not a fanciful witness to the supernatural incidents she reports. This adds veracity to what might have otherwise been a standard if effective haunting story.

Director Herbert West piles on the atmosphere, offering some enjoyable urban period detail, a cosy stream train journey, market town with all but smellable livestock and pubs and a location of a haunted house in a forbidding setting. The electricity that Kneale gave to the story offers comfort by joining the early '20s to the viewer fifty and more years later. After one chilling encounter, Arthur goes through the house, turning on every light he can find and we're glad of it.

The look and feel is uncinematic and claims no greater level than broadcast but the intensity of the staging is powerful. There's a broken family graveyard outside the house that Arthur inspects as a kind of curiosity. In a single shot, he responds to an intense sensation and turns around to find the woman in black standing behind him, close but metres away. Sure, the actor was hiding behind one of the headstones and popped up when the shot covered her to "suddenly" appear, but it works and how. I was so wary of seeing this after my first viewing (on home video) that I'd tense up if I showed it to anyone else. The sound of the carriage accident in the fog also works and intensifies later when it is shown not to depend on the fog or even time of day. The notion that ghosts might only be triggered playbacks of elemental records was something Kneale had based a whole television play on over a decade before. Here it links up to the wax cylinder recordings and discomforting incidents in the house. This adds up to a terrifying closed world and continues beyond its bounds.

The lesson here is big ideas working even with scant means. I have twice missed the theatrical version of this story in which a heavily minimised cast is used to great effect. That this television telling is so effective will come as no surprise to anyone who has schooled themselves in the BBC's Ghost Stories for Christmas which remain effective and always punched above their weight. The problem is that this is hard to get in front of, these days. For a long time there had only been a U.S. DVD available on online platforms due to discontinuation. In 2020, I took delighted delivery of a special edition but that label (Network Restoration) went bust. There is vague news of that edition resurfacing next year through another label. I hope that's true. In the meantime, there is the possibility of the play turning up near you. I'll recommend the novel. The 2012 James Watkins directed waste of time is a series of jump scares and cliches not present in the source material. It's the only film version currently available but must not be pursued. Somehow, I hope readers can find themselves in front of this, effective, spooky and satisfying tale.