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The Halfway House

A group of travellers, each with a personal problem that they want to hide, arrive at a mysterious Welsh country inn. There is a certain strangeness in the air as they are greeted by the innkeeper and his daughter. Why are all the newspapers a year old? And why doesn't Gwyneth seem to cast a shadow?

Top Cast

  • Mervyn Johns

    Mervyn Johns

    Rhys

  • Glynis Johns

    Glynis Johns

    Gwyneth

  • Sally Ann Howes

    Sally Ann Howes

    Joanna French

  • Françoise Rosay

    Françoise Rosay

    Alice Meadows

  • Tom Walls

    Tom Walls

    Capt. Meadows

  • Esmond Knight

    Esmond Knight

    David Davies

  • Guy Middleton

    Guy Middleton

    Fortescue

  • Valerie White

    Valerie White

    Jill French

  • Richard Bird

    Richard Bird

    Squadron Leader Richard French

Overview

A group of travellers, each with a personal problem that they want to hide, arrive at a mysterious Welsh country inn. There is a certain strangeness in the air as they are greeted by the innkeeper and his daughter. Why are all the newspapers a year old? And why doesn't Gwyneth seem to cast a shadow?

Rating

6.5 / 10
34 Reviews
0 Popular

1 Reviews

  • CinemaSerf
    CinemaSerf
    7 Nov 10, 2022

    When a group of weary travellers arrive at a rural inn, they immediately feel that something is amiss. It's run by "Rhys" (Mervyn Johns) and his (real life) daughter "Gwyneth" (Glynis Johns) who somewhat curiously never casts a shadow. The whole place looks like it's been stuck in a time-warp as the storm rages outside. Now, as the story develops we discover that each of the guests have their own skeletons in their closets, but the hostelry in which they shelter seems to be possessed with a sort of benevolence that manifests itself in different ways to help (nor not!). Made during the latter stages of the Second World War the story offers us a degree of poignant retrospective, paralleling some of the tales with the trauma many will have experienced during that conflict. It also features a charming and entertaining degree of chemistry between the father and daughter too. The individual stories themselves are maybe a bit too undercooked, but it has a decent cast of familiar British faces - Tom Walls and Esmond Knight amongst them - to deliver them solidly enough, and to help create a mysterious and poignant atmosphere for this quirky ninety minutes of wartime optimism.

Recommendations

The Canterville Ghost

When a teenaged girl moves to England, with her brothers and parents into the ancient Canterville Hall, she's not at all happy. Especially as there's a ghost and a mysterious re-appearing bloodstain on the hearth. She campaigns to go back home, and her dad, believing the ghost's pranks are Ginny's, is ready to send her back. But then Ginny actually meets the elusive 17th-century Sir Simon de Canterville (not to mention the cute teenaged duke next door), and she sets her hand to the task of freeing Sir Simon from his curse.

The Canterville Ghost

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