The Ghost (1963 film)

Did You Know?

• Freda said the censors did not object to any of the film's content.
• The film grossed a total of £175 million lira on its theatrical release.

Plot

In 1910 Scotland, the ailing Doctor Hichcock, a wheelchair user, conducts seances where his housekeeper Catherine acts as medium. He believes shots of lethal poison followed by an antidote could cure his disability. Younger Doctor Livingstone stays to administer this treatment. Hichcock's wife Margaret, having an affair with Livingstone, implores him to murder her husband, which he does by injecting poison without the antidote. During the estate distribution, they learn Hichcock recently changed his will: Margaret receives the house and contents but only a third of bonds, shares, currency, and jewels kept in the safe. Catherine reveals the safe key was in the jacket buried with Hichcock; they retrieve it from his coffin. Livingstone opens the safe while Margaret is absent; it is empty. They then hear Hichcock's voice and experience poltergeist phenomena, including his ghostly appearance. Catherine, apparently possessed, tells Margaret the valuables are buried beneath the coffin. Margaret finds a golden box there; opening it, she cuts herself, and it contains only a skull. Catherine insinuates Livingstone took the valuables. Margaret finds jewels in his bag, slashes him to death with a razor, and burns his body in the cellar with kerosene.

Production

The Ghost was shot in Rome and is a Gothic re-imagining of the film Les Diaboliques (1955). The Italian production crew used aliases. The music score is credited to Franck Wallace, whom Bianco e Nero and the Monthly Film Bulletin claim is a pseudonym for Franco Mannino; Beat Records later found the tapes credited to Francesco De Masi, who is not credited in the film. Freda had directed Steele in The Horrible Dr. Hichcock the previous year, but the characters share no connection.