Friday's Film Adaption: The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle

Summary:
Brother and sister buy a sinister house in Cornwall, haunted by the ghost of a woman believed to be a paragon--but was she? Could a young girl's pure love triumph over the dread forces of evil and hatred that made Cliff End a place of never-ending terror? Seeking to escape the demands of London, Pam Fitzgerald and her brother, Roddy, an aspiring playwright, discover a charming house in the west of England, overlooking the Irish Sea. The house, Cliff End, has long been empty, and they are able to purchase it at a suspiciously low price from crusty Commander Brooke, the village curmudgeon. The reason is soon apparent: the house has an unsavory reputation. Fifteen years earlier a murder may or may not have occurred by the gnarled tree that can be viewed by the parlor window. Slowly the Fitzgeralds begin to sense the evil spirit that still inhabits the house, announcing its presence with a sudden, bone-chilling cold.

Made into a movie in 1944 with Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey. Original British title (1941), "Uneasy Freehold".

Author Bio:
Dorothy Macardle was born in Dundalk, Ireland in 1889 into a wealthy brewing family, famous for their Macardle's Ale, and was raised Roman Catholic. She received her secondary education in Alexandra College, Dublin – a school under the management of the Church of Ireland – and later attended University College, Dublin. Upon graduating, she returned to teach English at Alexandra.

Macardle was a member of the Gaelic League and later joined Cumann na mBan in 1917. In 1918 (during the War of Independence), Macardle was arrested by the RIC while teaching at Alexandra; she was eventually dismissed in 1923, towards the latter end of the Irish Civil War, because of her anti-Treatyite sympathies and activities.

When the republican movement split in 1921-22 over the Anglo-Irish Treaty, MacArdle sided with Éamon de Valera and the anti-Treaty Irregulars. She was imprisoned by the fledgling Free State government in 1922, during the Civil War, and served time in both Mountjoy and Kilmainham Gaols.

While working as a journalist with the League of Nations in the 1930s she acquired a considerable affinity with the plight of pre-war Czechoslovakia. Consequently she differed with official Irish government policy on the threat of Nazism, Irish neutrality during World War II, compulsory Irish language teaching in schools, and deplored what she saw as the reduced status of women in the 1937 Constitution of Ireland.

Macardle recounted her Civil War experiences in Earthbound: Nine Stories of Ireland (1924). Macardle became a playwright in the next two decades. In her dramatic writing she used the pseudonym Margaret Callan. During this time she worked as a journalist at the League of Nations.

She also researched her mammoth book The Irish Republic which was first published in 1937. Her political opponents and some modern historians consider her to be a hagiographer for de Valera's political views. Murray considers that: "..de Valera’s ambitious scheme was eventually implemented by Dorothy Macardle, his devoted follower and lifelong apologist, whose book The Irish Republic conforms closely to the overall plan outlined by de Valera in prison, and even incorporates many of its details. The outline originally proposed by de Valera was extremely detailed, incorporating a carefully planned chronology and headings from which the chapters were to be developed."

She died in 1958 at the age of 69 of cancer in hospital in Drogheda. Though she was somewhat disillusioned with the new Irish State (in particular, regarding its treatment of women), she left the royalties from The Irish Republic to her close friend Éamon de Valera, who wrote the foreword to the book. De Valera visited her when she was dying.

Film
The Uninvited 1944
Directed by Lewis Allen
Produced by Charles Brackett
Screenplay by  Frank Partos & Dodie Smith
Based on Uneasy Freehold by Dorothy Macardle

Cast:
Ray Milland as Roderick Fitzgerald
Ruth Hussey as Pamela Fitzgerald
Donald Crisp as Commander Beech
Cornelia Otis Skinner as Miss Holloway
Dorothy Stickney as Miss Bird
Barbara Everest as Lizzie Flynn
Alan Napier as Dr. Scott
Gail Russell as Stella Meredith

Music by Victor Young
Cinematography by Charles B. Lang
Edited by Doane Harrison
Production company: Paramount Pictures
Release date: February 10, 1944
Running time: 99 min.
Country: United States
Language: English







Trailer:

I've never read the original book but I have seen the movie and it's one of my favorite ghost films.  It helps that I love Ray Milland.  A little bit of romance, a little more mystery, and throw in a great ghost tale and it's an amazing film.

Rating:  

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Book

Amazon  /  Goodreads TBR

Film:  Amazon