As this film begins, you are bound to notice the wonderful opening credits done by Charles Addams. I do wonder if the hand is that of Addams, though! You have to see it to understand what I mean.

The film begins with an American (Tom Poston) being invited by his English friend to come to spend the weekend at his ancestral home in Dartmoor. However, once he arrives, he finds that his friend is dead--lying in state in the creepy old mansion. But, like any scary old house film, the car is damaged and unable to take him home AND the rain is so bad that he really can't leave. That is when the murders begin and it becomes obvious that the house is filled with a bunch of nuts.

The film is supposed to be a comedic remake of the classic 1932 film. However, I use the words 'supposed to' because rarely is the film particularly funny and the humor seems very, very forced. In many ways, it looks like a film that Sherwood Schwartz or Hanna-Barbera would have made--with perhaps the Brady kids or even Scooby Doo and Shaggy investigating. This combined with the fact that there have been too many old scary house films (such as AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, THE MONSTER, NUMBER SEVENTEEN, THE BLACK CAT and many, many others) make this one you don't need to rush out to see.

By the way, in one of the low-points of the film, a hyena is supposedly menacing Tom Poston. However, the camera shots of the hyena from the front clearly show it's a stuffed animal!! The rear shots are a dog!! Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

This remake of The Old Dark House is a brown comedy almost tan. It's funny and sometimes you might think you'll see Abbott&Costello pop in. But it ;lacks the atmosphere pf the 30s original.

Tom Poston over from America shares a London flat with Peter Bull who charges him with bringing an imported American car over to the family estate which kind of resembles where the Baskervilles might have lived. He does so and meets the Femm family, Bull's family and they are one interesting clan.

They are bound to that estate by the will of their ancestor who was a pirate to make sure that no one takes up that particular trade. Now why Bull had been sharing a flat with Poston you have to see the film for.,

William Castle and Hammer films of whom this was a joint project assembled quite a cast of British character players like Robert Morley, Mervyn Johns, and Joyce Grenfell as some of the Femme family. Some of them get dead and Poston might join them as they are convinced he is a long lost American cousin.

Poston does a good job and a cast like this, especially Morley for me is hard to resist. Still this The Old Dark House is a single, not a home run.

Or maybe I should have used a cricket analogy.

THE OLD DARK HOUSE has many reasons it should be a success. It's an all-colour remake of a 1930s classic that spawned an entire genre of subsequent 'old dark house' style movies, made with strong production values by the reliable chaps at Hammer Films. Imported American director William Castle came off the back of a string of enjoyable hits including HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL and THE TINGLER. You'd think that nothing could go wrong, but you'd be sorely mistaken about that.

The truth is that THE OLD DARK HOUSE goes out for the out-and-out spoof approach to poor effect. American funnyman lead Tom Poston simply isn't very endearing or funny, just goofy. The supporting cast of eccentrics is very good, with Fenella Fielding in dry-run mode for CARRY ON SCREAMING, Robert Morley as funny as ever, and Mervyn Johns stealing all his scenes as the old-timer eccentric. The first half an hour of the film sets up the plot and mystery and is quite workable, but it goes downhill from there. The various murder scenes are dragged out and the story elements get sillier and sillier as they go on, with the whole 'Noah's ark' sub-plot being the real nadir. In the end, THE OLD DARK HOUSE is neither scary nor funny, just silly, and a far cry from something much more cheaply-made but far funnier, like WHAT A CARVE UP!