Weekend Movie – ‘The House On Marsh Road’ (1960)
A nice little ghost story for you all this week. The House On Marsh Road is a tale about a couple, an alcoholic writer and his long suffering wife who whilst living on their uppers financially, mostly because of the husband, David Linton played by Tony Wright, drinks when he should be writing, suddenly have some good news. The news is that Linton’s wife, Jean, played by Patricia Dainton, has inherited a large old house and £1000 in the will of her late aunt. The Linton’s move into the house with the expectation by Jean that David will finally stop drinking and get on with his novel.
Alas David does not stop drinking nor does he work on his novel but Jean does find out, from a woman engaged as a housekeeper, that the house is haunted by a poltergeist who the housekeeper named ‘Patrick’. Patrick satisfies himself with merely moving things like chairs and pictures around the house but Patrick also makes it quite clear that if there is anyone that this ghost has any animosity about it’s David Linton.
David Linton covets the house that is in his wife’s name and wants her to sell it and take the money that the sale of the house will bring. Jean Linton doesn’t want to do this and because of this David Linton goes further and further off the moral rails in his quest to take over the title of the property.
The ghost, because of David Linton’s increasingly bizarre and abusive behaviour towards his wife, becomes more and more protective of Jean and this protectiveness is illustrated in stark relief when David cheats on Jean at Jean’s house with a femme fatale secretary who David had engaged to type up the manuscript of his novel. I’m not going to give any spoilers here but it’s a pretty spectacular conclusion to the plot.
This is a really competent early 60’s ghost horror movie that is a cut above the creature features that were popular at the time. It deals well with issues of alcoholism, moral turpitude, domestic abuse and the supernatural aspect of this plot is handled very well indeed.
I really enjoyed this movie and I hope that you do too. You can get via the link below.