The Halfway House
| The Halfway House | |
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British quad poster
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| Directed by | Basil Dearden |
| Produced by | Michael Balcon |
| Written by | Angus MacPhail, Diana Morgan |
| Based on | play The Peaceful Inn by Dennis Ogden |
| Starring |
Mervyn Johns Glynis Johns Tom Walls Françoise Rosay |
| Music by | Lord Berners |
| Cinematography | Wilkie Cooper |
| Edited by | Charles Hasse |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | ABPC (UK) |
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Release date
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Running time
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95 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Halfway House is a 1944 British drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Tom Walls, Françoise Rosay and Mervyn Johns (who appears with his own daughter, actress Glynis Johns). The film tells the story of ten people who are drawn to stay in an old hotel in a remote Welsh village. The film was shot at Barlynch Abbey on the Devon/Somerset border.
BFI Screenonline writes, "The high quality personnel involved and the tight, professional scripting mark the film out as one of the earliest templates of what would become the traditional Ealing style."
The film premiered in London at the Regal, Marble Arch on 14 April 1944, and The Times reviewer wrote: "The film elusively obtains its effects when it appears to be least striving after them, and an occasional frisson is achieved by acute touches of direction which light up not only depths of human tension and unhappiness, but also unobtrusively reckon with their cause—the war."
George Perry wrote in Forever Ealing (1981): "No matter how well-acted, the fantasy is hard to sustain and never develops beyond a theatrical morality tale." while The Huffington Post reviewer writes, "I really can't recommend The Halfway House enough: unlike the more overt Ealing war films (which this resembles in many ways, not least the disparate group coming together and working together), this is subtler propaganda, and its overarching supernatural atmosphere is well done. Apart from that, however, it offers strong character portraits, great visual flourishes, and another solid turn from [Mervyn] Johns."Flickering Myth calls it "an unseen and unappreciated classic of British cinema".
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Wikipedia