[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Halfway House (1944)

A group of travelers, all with something to hide in their past, take shelter from a storm in an old inn. An inn that was bombed to the ground exactly a year ago to the day.

The Halfway House is an absolute gem. An underrated gem at that. Beautifully directed by Basil Dearden it plays out almost like a portmanteau with each character having a story to tell from their past, present or indeed future in the case of the Irishman. The film could be seen as a propaganda piece with it's own view point on Ireland's neautrality in the war, but the whole is much more than mere war time propaganda.

Starring Mervyn Johns and his actual daughter Glynis, as the innkeeper and his daughter, the film has an air of supernatural mystery to it, an air that's fairly easy to figure out as some of travelers begin to as the film plays out. Such as why their hosts cast no shadow and so forth, but the mystery isn't the reason for the film, it's how each character sorts out his and her troubles and the way the innkeeper helps them deal with their woes, hopes and fears. Far from dragging, the script gives each character believability whether you believe their motives are sound or not in what is essentially an excellent morality tale. The supernatural atmosphere is constant but never meant to scare, more to intrigue and beguile, at least until the final reels where everyone realises what happened to the inn and their reason for being there on this fateful day.

Anybody who loves Dead of Night (1945), again co-directed by Basil Dearden, should really appreciate this little seen slice of the supernatural.