Still image from The Old House in Movie Makers, Dec. 1953, 318.
English
500 ft
16mm
Kodachrome
Silent
With sound on tape.
"Five years before the action of The Old House opens, a young man and his bride of but a year had been involved in a train wreck. The bride, Claire, was killed: but the man — scarred in mind, bruised in body and (he thought) dependent on a walking stick — lived on. He comes now, as the film begins, for one last look at the Old House, "the Old House where I was born and grew up, where Claire and I had been so happy for one short year, with hopes and plans for a future that never came." But, instead of viewing (with self-inflicted sadness) his old homestead, he meets accidentally with a brightfaced boy of five, son of his widowed tenant. How this youngster, this "artless wisdom dressed in blue jeans," frees the man from his stick (a mere surface symbol of his bondage) and from his obsession with the past is the theme of The Old House. But it is fruitless always to attempt a factual outline of any visual study in human relations. And, heartwarmingly, believably and triumphantly, The Old House is simply and exactly that. The producer, Keith Hall, has plotted the course of his tenuous drama with a sure touch and unfailing taste. His scenic progressions are so artful as to seem artless, while his camera work and narrative exposition never fail him in the delicate unfolding of his denouement. Yet it is to the three players of this picture — and to their narrator — that the ultimate tributes must be paid. Young Ross Hall as the Boy, Noela Hall as his widowed Mother, and Mr. Hall himself as the Man are exactly and exquisitely right in their restrained underplaying of three diflicult roles. Reg Cameron, the narrator, speaks lines which are always literate, and often lyric, with warmth and understanding. From its simple opening to its quietly soaring climax, The Old House is a tender and moving triumph." Movie Makers, Dec. 1953, 318-319.
The film won the Australian Amateur Cine Society's Gold Cup competition in 1952 (Movie Makers, Dec. 1953, 341).
The film was part of a program of award-winning Australian amateur films screened at the first Sydney Film Festival in 1954.
Record of the film on BFI.
Do you know where this film is? Get in touch with us at amdb@ucalgary.ca.
Amateur Cinema