The Tell-Tale Heart | |
---|---|
Directed by | Brian Desmond Hurst |
Written by | David Plunkett Greene (screenplay), Edgar Allan Poe (short story) |
Based on | The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe |
Produced by | Harry Clifton |
Starring | Norman Dryden John Kelt |
Cinematography | Walter Blakeley |
Edited by | Vernon Clancey |
Music by | John Reynders |
Production company | Blattner Studios |
Distributed by | Fox Film Company |
Release date |
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Running time | 55 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
The Tell-Tale Heart is a 1934 British drama film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst. [1] The screenplay by David Plunkett Greene is based on the 1843 short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe. It is the earliest known "talkie" film adaptation of the story.
A young manservant is driven mad by his obsession with the repulsive diseased eye of an old man who cares for him. He kills his master and hides the remains under the floorboards. When the police investigate the old man's disappearance, the imagined beating of the victim's heart haunts the murderer's thoughts so much that his words and actions arouse the suspicions of the police.
Produced by Clifton-Hurst Productions (with Harry Clifton as the listed producer [2] ), it was filmed at the Blattner Studios in Elstree, and released in the USA under the title Bucket of Blood. The film was considered so gruesome that it was withdrawn from some cinemas in the UK. [3] The cast was mostly amateur (John Kelt had appeared in several silent films) and the dialogue is so sparse that Hurst recalled when interviewed: [4]
At the big Elstree studios nearby they said "There's a fellow over at Blattner's studio who's making practically a silent picture."
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of the narrator's sanity while simultaneously describing a murder the narrator committed. The victim was an old man with a filmy pale blue "vulture-eye", as the narrator calls it. The narrator emphasizes the careful calculation of the murder, attempting the perfect crime, complete with dismembering the body in the bathtub and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately, the narrator's actions result in hearing a thumping sound, which the narrator interprets as the dead man's beating heart.
Elstree Studios is a generic term which can refer to several current and demolished British film studios and television studios based in or around the town of Borehamwood and village of Elstree in Hertfordshire, England. Production studios have been located in the area since 1914 when film production began there.
The Tell-Tale Heart is a 1960 British horror film directed by Ernest Morris and starring Laurence Payne, Adrienne Corri and Dermot Walsh. It was produced by the Danzigers. The screenplay by Brian Clemens and Eldon Howard is a loose adaptation of the 1843 short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe. The film was released in England in December 1960, and in the U.S. in February 1962 as The Hidden Room of 1,000 Horrors.
Brian Desmond Hurst was an Irish film director. With over thirty films in his filmography, Hurst was hailed as Northern Ireland's best film director by BBC film critic Mike Catto. He is perhaps best known for the 1951 A Christmas Carol adaptation Scrooge.
Dangerous Exile is a 1957 British historical drama film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Louis Jourdan, Belinda Lee, Anne Heywood and Richard O'Sullivan. It concerns the fate of Louis XVII, who died in 1795 as a boy, yet was popularly believed to have escaped from his French revolutionary captors.
The Tell-Tale Heart is an 1843 short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
Ourselves Alone is a 1936 British drama film depicting a love story set against the backdrop of the Irish War of Independence. The title is a translation of the Irish slogan Sinn Féin Amháin. It is directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and stars John Lodge, John Loder and Antoinette Cellier.
Simba is a 1955 British war drama film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, and starring Dirk Bogarde, Donald Sinden, Virginia McKenna, and Basil Sydney. The screenplay concerns a British family living in East Africa, who become embroiled in the Mau Mau Uprising.
Trottie True is a 1949 British musical comedy film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Jean Kent, James Donald and Hugh Sinclair. It was known as The Gay Lady in the US, and is an infrequent British Technicolor film of the period. According to BFI Screenonline, "British 1940s Technicolor films offer an abundance of visual pleasures, especially when lovingly restored by the National Film Archive. Trottie True is not among the best known, but comes beautifully packaged, gift wrapped with all the trimmings." The film is based on a novel by Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon, published in 1946. The New York Times called it "a typical Gay nineties success story" that "amuses but never convulses the reader."
Adrian Brunel was an English film director and screenwriter. Brunel's directorial career started in the silent era, and reached its peak in the latter half of the 1920s. His surviving work from the 1920s, both full-length feature films and shorts, is highly regarded by silent film historians for its distinctive innovation, sophistication and wit. With the arrival of talkies, Brunel's career ground to a halt and he was absent from the screen for several years before returning in the mid-1930s with a flurry of quota quickie productions, the majority of which are now classed as lost. Brunel's last credit as director was in a 1940 comedy film, although he worked for a few years more as a "fixer-up" for films directed or produced by friends in the industry.
The BBC Elstree Centre, sometimes referred to as the BBC Elstree Studios, is a television production facility, currently owned by the BBC. The complex is located between Eldon Avenue and Clarendon Road in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England.
Ludwig Blattner was a German-born inventor, film producer, director and studio owner in the United Kingdom, and developer of one of the earliest magnetic sound recording devices.
Gerry Blattner was a British film producer who worked on many films produced by Warner Bros. in the United Kingdom.
The Elstree Project is an oral history project which began in 2010, interviewing cast and crew members who worked at Elstree Studios. The project is conducted in partnership Howard Berry, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire, and formerly involved Elstree Screen Heritage as a partner. The project is endorsed by the BECTU History Project and Elstree Film Studios.
Edward J. Danziger (1909–1999) and Harry Lee Danziger (1913–2005) were American-born brothers who produced many British films and TV shows in the 1950s and 1960s.
Henry Talbot de Vere Clifton was an eccentric, British aristocrat, poet, race horse owner, art collector and film producer. He spent some time in Hollywood during the early 1930s and, in the mid 1930s, produced films in Britain. In the 1930s and 1940s he had three books of poetry published.
Elstree Studios on Shenley Road, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire is a British film and television production centre operated by Elstree Film Studios Limited. One of several facilities historically referred to as Elstree Studios, the Shenley Road studios originally opened in 1925.
My Lucky Star is a 1933 British comedy film directed by Louis Blattner and John Harlow and starring Florence Desmond, Oscar Asche and Harry Tate. It was made at Elstree Studios as a quota quickie. A young woman working in a shop poses as a film star.
New Elstree Studios was a British film studio complex that was the main production centre for the Danziger Brothers from 1956 to 1962, and was one of several sites collectively known as "Elstree Studios". 60 B-movies and 350 half-hour TV episodes were filmed there, for both British and American markets.