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Whistle And Ill Come To You
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This film is not currently available on DVD. Film Description When a professor goes to the coast for a brief vacation, he finds a bone whistle and accidentally awakens supernatural forces that have been dormant for centuries. Made by Jonathan Miller for BBC's Omnibus programme as a critique of M R James, the film is also a peerless adaptation of his short story, capturing brilliantly the essence and inspiration behind his writing. Hordern's performance as the troubled professor is near flawless.
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Share your thoughts and opinions - write a review
Review by Graeme Hobbs on 25th October 2005
Made for the BBC’s Omnibus programme in 1968, Jonathan Miller’s unsettling adaptation of M R James’ 1905 ghost story is a beautifully spare re-telling, suffused with an atmosphere of chilly, clammy sea-damp. The story centres on a professor holidaying in a guest house on the Norfolk coast. Whilst there and on one of his daily trudges across the dunes he comes across a buried, inscribed whistle that he cleans. He blows it and finds that it seems to have the unwelcome power to call up the wind and worse.
The supernatural is finely balanced by the psychological in the film and an unhealthy combination of repression and intellectual pride hangs around the professor. Though at the very beginning of the film we see him on a healthy constitutional across the dunes, indoors his bed is being prepared briskly and efficiently by a starched maid. This is where he is most alone and increasingly threatened in the film.
In a flawless performance, Michael Hordern plays the abstracted and fidgety professor Parkin. On screen for almost the entire story, his character is formed mostly without dialogue through the tics and mannerisms that betray his fragility. He fills silences with clucks and mumbles and can look no-one in the eye. By the time of the brilliantly effective dream sequences, he is on the edge of breakdown.
View more reviews by Graeme Hobbs
Review by Charles Stanley on 23rd December 2004
Riveting, awesome and terifying, Horden is brilliant. Bautifully shot with an overwelming sense of forboding and dread.
Review by Dean North on 19th October 2005
This is the most disturbing and fear inducing film I have ever had the privilege to watch. Fantastic.
This film is part of the following Customer Film Lists
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This is your list: the 100 films you've bought the most of in the 10 years of MovieMail's existence. There are some surprise entries and some glaring omissions – but it’s all true, and, frankly, you’ve got very good taste! It’s such a good list that we're going to make it a permanent fixture on our website and to celebrate the launch we’ve slashed many of the prices on these wonderful films. Enjoy!
Recommendations from fellow customers
More films directed by Jonathan Miller
The Taming Of The Shrew (BBC, 1980)
Anthony and Cleopatra (BBC, 1981)
More films starring Michael Hordern
by Anthony Page
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum
by Trevor Nunn
More films starring Freda Dowie
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