Review #9: Return to Glennascaul (1953) - Short film

Return to Glennascaul is a simply superb little ghost story featuring Orson Welles in both a narrating and acting role. This is a spooky film, and well-worth the time to watch.

Source: YouTube

Length: 22 minutes

Number of Ratings from IMDb: 276

Country of Origin: Ireland

Director: Hilton Edwards [Return to Glennascaul]

In a quite unique fashion, this short begins as filming for the 1952 Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (starring Orson Welles, of course) is commenced.

Well, after messing up a line, Welles decides it's time to take a smoke break, and it is in this time when his brilliant narrating starts.

Welles: Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your obedient servant, Orson Welles, speaking. I am interrupting here the making of one movie to speak these few words at the beginning of, well, what shall we call this? - a short story. A short story straight from the haunted land of Ireland. Haunted, I say, because there's no place in the world so crowded with the raw material of tall tales. That's what this is, then, a tall tale. Reportedly. It happened to me, but I promise shortly to withdraw from the proceedings and return to my own movie studio and my own movie, but not before taking this opportunity to apologize to the two ladies I passed so very abruptly one spooky Irish midnight not so long ago.

Haunted land of Ireland

It's a great beginning - mysterious, slightly spooky, and very well-worded. Welles voice, unlike other narrators, is not always smooth and loud. Sometimes he speaks quickly or quietly, making it feel far more realistic. So anyway, this story takes place as Welles is driving through Ireland the previous night.

On his way to Dublin, he notices someone off the side of the road who appears to be having problems with his car. Being the dutiful man he is, he offers the stranger a ride.

At first, the man politely declines, though admits his car is not going to be running again tonight. Looking around, getting his bearings, however, changes that. Once he discovers where his car broke down, he decides to accept Welles' offer.

After some formal pleasantries, including a semi-amusing reference to Welles' distributors, the man passes Welles his cigarette case, prompting the man to remember something that happened to him, on that very same stretch of road, years back, which he "barely believes is real." This peaks the interest of Welles, who states: 

Welles: When a man begins to doubt an experience, it must have been a good one.

The man then begins his story - he was driving alone, much like Welles, and he stopped to pick up two stranded women (one younger, one older) on the side of the road.

He asks them where they're going, and they reply they're home, named Glennascaul, in Dublin. The man notes it's not out of the way whatsoever, as he is also going to Dublin, and gives them a lift there.

Once at the home, the man wishes them a fine night, but before he leaves, the younger girl urges her mother to ask him in for a drink or two. The man kindly rebuffs the first request, but then obliges as the two women press on. He, along with the women, then enter Glennascaul.

Once inside, the three then go upstairs to the sitting room, in which a fire was already lit prior to the two ladies leaving earlier that night. After accepting a glass of whiskey, and lighting up his cigarette, Welles narrates the man's thoughts.

Welles: As he sat there, chatting with the two ladies, he felt that something, he couldn't tell what, but something was very definitely out of the way.

The younger woman

The conversation turned to the man's cigarette case, which the younger woman found both very pretty and also interesting, for an unknown reason.

The man admiring his drink, and the young lady enamored with the case.

Before too long, the clock strikes 1 a.m., and the man decides that it is time for him to leave. Rather forcefully, the two seem to want him to remain, but he is allowed to go, and promises to visit again another time.

The older woman, looking at her daughter (seen in the mirror).

As the young lady brings him to the door, the music, with the right level of creepy, pops up, and you just can't help but feel some foreboding. Right before the young lady shuts the door, calls out to him:

Young woman: You will come back?

The man affirms he shall, and begins to drive away.

He gets only 100 years before he realizes something: he left his cigarette case on the mantle of the sitting room. Deciding that the women would not yet be asleep, he goes back for it, setting the last ten minutes, in all of it's creepiness, into motion.

From here on out, I won't give any plot details, as I do feel it's most effective it be viewed and not spoken about. Here are some of my favorite images, however, from that point of time onward.

The last ten minutes of this film are as good, if not better, than the first ten minutes. This film is good - the music, the story, the ending, everything. This defines a class act short.

I don't really have much more to say - I can only praise this short so many times. My recommendation is that you go to YouTube and watch it whenever possible. Fine, fine short here.

My rating: 9/10

The IMDb page is here.

Up next, on Beyond the Darkened Door:

A very early horror classic, from 1903, clocking in at just over one minute. Don't miss it.