Region / Format: R1 USA NTSC

Released by: Carlton / BFS Video

Running Time: 100 Minutes Approx.

Aspect Ratio: Full Frame 4:3 - 1.33:1 

Audio: 2.0 Dolby Mono

Subtitles: N/A

Extra Features: N/A

Although being made in 1989 would usually mean that a film falls outside the main area of focus for Where Shadows Fall, I have decided to cover the Woman in Black here for two key reasons:

1. It's an Edwardian period piece, with a style akin to M.R. James or Henry James and has an atmosphere that harks back to a bygone era of supernatural literature and cinema.
   
   
2. As it was made for British television by Granada / ITV, although well known amongst fans of classic ghost stories committed to the screen over here, it seems to have passed by even some of the most dedicated fans on other shores.
   

Having been a hugely popular 1983 novel by Susan Hill, turned into a stage play in 1987 by Stephen Mallatratt, which became so successful that within a few months it became a West End production which still runs today, it was maybe inevitable that The Woman in Black would see an adaptation for the screen.

Directed by Herbert Wise (a long running British TV director from the 1950's onwards), and with a screenplay by the highly respected Nigel Kneale (Quatermass, 1984, Year of the Sex Olympics, The Stone Tape), the story centres around a young solicitor, Arthur Kidd (played by Adrian Rawlins and originally named Kipps in the novel) who is sent by his law firm's senior, Mr Sweetman (David Ryall), from London to the small market town of Crythin Gifford, on the east coast of England.

Arthur is to attend the funeral of one of the firm's longstanding clients,  Mrs Alice Drablow -an elderly recluse who  lived in solitude at Eel Marsh House, then stay on and finalise the affairs of her will and estate. An undertaking that Mr Sweetman himself seems very reluctant to handle.

Bidding goodbye to his wife and two young children (characters not present in the novel), Arthur boards the train for Crythin Gifford, upon which he meets Sam Toovey (Bernard Hepton), a local landowner who escorts him to his accommodation for the night, where in he is met by an innkeeper who seems somewhat ill at ease to find that Arthur is in town to deal with the late Mrs Drablow's affairs.

The next morning Arthur meets with his contact, Mr Pepperell and attends the funeral as planned, to find that they are the only mourners, or so he believes. Glancing to the back of the church during the service, Arthur notices a woman clothed head-to-toe in black, whom he later sees again standing amongst the tombstones upon their departure from the church. Believing her to be an unexpected mourner, Arthur points out her presence to Mr Pepperell, who instantly becomes flustered and pale, before shouting at and chasing away a group of children playing on the edge of the graveyard.  Arthur can't understand Pepperell's irratic behaviour at the woman's presence and looking back at the graveyard see's she has once again vanished.

Later back in town it's market day, with bustling crowds busy coming and going.  A reversing lumber truck stalls and spills its load, with a log landing upon a young gypsy girl, trapping her legs underneath. While the rest of the crowd stare on motionless, Arthur rushes in and saves the child before the remainder of the cargo crushes down upon her. He is then met with further strange behaviour from 'the locals' while taking his lunch back at the inn, seemingly he should have left the young girl to 'fate'.

As Pepperell is unwilling to travel to Eel Marsh House, Arthur decides to travel there alone on a horse & trap, run by a local delivery driver, Keckwick. Eel Marsh is a lonely, desolate place, located at the end of what is known locally as 'The Nine Lives Causeway' and, during high tide, cannot be reached from the mainland, being cut-off by the sea, the surrounding marshland and the whirling mists that make visibility near impossible.

After spending some time searching the house, Arthur decides to explore its grounds. Walking out into what would seem to be a family graveyard, he once again sees the mysterious woman in black, only this time more clearly; her face is twisted with spite and hate, her eyes burning straight through him. As she begins to move towards him, Arthur flees in fear back to the house. 

Searching around the house further, Arthur discovers the death certificates of two people who died at the same time, mysterious wax recordings of Mrs Drablow and a picture of a woman who seems to resemble the woman in black. Deciding he can wait no longer and that he will make his way back to the mainland before Keckwick returns to collect him, Arthur rushes from the house.

Trying to find a path along the causeway, Arthur is blinded by the seamists that engulf him on all sides. Hearing a horse & trap in the distance, he calls out to what he believes to be Keckwick, but as the sound draws closer, he's met with a terrifying scream and a young child crying out for the help of its mother.  Being unable to see the child or mother, or find his way along the path, Arthur is left no option but to return towards the house, where moments later Keckwick arrives to collect him.

Arriving back in town, Arthur begins to doubt his sanity. What were those strange sounds on the causeway and who is the mysterious woman in black, who would wish to do him harm? Going into any further detail would potentially ruin a fantastic piece of viewing for those who've not exerienced it before.

While the script may have a few alterations from the source material with regard to characters and a maybe more appropriate ending for the screen version, this adaptation very much sticks to the basic plotline, atmosphere and essence created by the novel.  It would seem very clear that in writing her book, Susan Hill was particularly influenced by the writing of M.R. James, using his common scenario of having a central character travel from a large English city to a small costal town to meet some form of supernatural despair, as well as naming one of her chapters "Whistle and I'll Come to You", after one of James' most famous short ghost stories. In keeping with this, the TV adaptation of The Woman in Black reminds me very much of the atmosphere conjured by the BBC's adaptations of James' own tales, brought to the screen during the late 1960's and 1970's.

Personally, The Woman in Black remains once of my favourite screen hauntings, falling only behind such eternal greats as The Haunting and The Innocents. I first saw it when I was aged 12, upon its initial airing on Christmas Eve 1989 and I have to say that I found it pretty damn spooky. After several years later and re-discovering the film on DVD, I wasn't disappointed to find that it had lived up to my childhood memories and that it still had a great atmosphere, that far too few supernatural screen outings manage to capture.

Review by Matt Black.