Between 1971 and 1978 the BBC used to dramatise a ghost story every year under the title "A Ghost Story for Christmas". The first five entries in the series were all based upon tales by that great master of the genre, M. R. James. "Lost Hearts", first shown in 1973, was the third of these. (An earlier version of this story was produced for ITV's series "Mystery and Imagination" in the sixties, but this is now lost). James' story was set in the years 1811 and 1812, but the television adaptation seems to be set at a rather later date, given that Stephen has a photograph of his late mother. (Photography did not exist in the 1810s). The clothes she is wearing would suggest a date of around 1870/1880, but the costumes of the other characters seem to indicate a date of 30 or 40 years earlier.
An eleven-year-old orphan boy named Stephen is sent to live with his distant cousin Peregrine Abney, the owner of a country mansion. Abney, a childless bachelor who is much older than Stephen, greets him warmly, and at first seems like a kindly, if eccentric and bookish, old man. There is, however, an air of mystery over the house, and the housekeeper Mrs Bunch tells Stephen that he is not the first child to live at the house. Mr Abney earlier took in two other children, a girl named Phoebe and an Italian boy named Giovanni, but both mysteriously disappeared. Moreover, the house seems to be haunted by a pair of children, with pale faces and a gap in their chests where their hearts should be.
James himself once wrote that in a fictitious ghost story the ghost should be malevolent or odious, but in "Lost Hearts" he broke his own rule. The ghostly children may be frightening in appearance, but they are only malevolent towards Abney, who fully deserves their malice. Towards Stephen, the hero of the story, they are protective, trying to save him from the fate which they themselves suffered at his hands.
"Lost Hearts" has some features in common with both of the two earlier the "Ghost Stories for Christmas". With the first, "The Stalls of Barchester", it shares a central character who suffers retribution for an evil deed he has committed, but in that story there is no identifiable ghost and the possibility is left open that the villainous Doctor Haynes is the victim not of vengeful supernatural entities but of his own tormented imagination and guilty conscience. With the second, "A Warning to the Curious", it shares the feature of a very real ghostly presence, but Paxton, the protagonist of "A Warning..." is, unlike Abney, a sympathetic figure who in no way deserves the dreadful retribution which he inadvertently brings upon himself. One feature which sets "Lost Hearts" apart from its predecessors is that, at around 35 minutes, it is considerably shorter than either.
Simon Gipps-Kent, who plays Stephen, was a well-known child actor of the seventies. He continued acting into adulthood but was to die tragically of a drug overdose at the age of 28. Here he gives a solid performance, but the best comes from Joseph O'Connor as Abney, the avuncular old scholar whose seemingly benevolent demeanour masks a deadly obsession with occult knowledge and a total lack of concern for anyone other than himself. James was a devout Christian and may have intended the story as a warning against dabbling in the occult.
Another feature of this dramatisation is the music; Giovanni's hurdy-gurdy plays a more central role in this film than it did in James's story, and contributes to the eerie, disturbing atmosphere. The film was shot in and around Ormesby Hall in Lincolnshire, the producers having managed to find a stately home that not only resembles James's description of Abney's country house but is also located in the same county. The conventional way of making horror stories and ghostly tales would have been to set them in a crumbling Victorian Gothic pile; Ormesby is nothing of the sort but an elegant Georgian neoclassical building from the Age of Reason. Like its owner, however, the house is hiding its secrets. A façade of reason can conceal the most terrifying unreason. This is a superbly atmospheric production, on a part with "A Warning to the Curious" and considerably better than "The Stalls of Barchester". 9/10.
An eleven-year-old orphan boy named Stephen is sent to live with his distant cousin Peregrine Abney, the owner of a country mansion. Abney, a childless bachelor who is much older than Stephen, greets him warmly, and at first seems like a kindly, if eccentric and bookish, old man. There is, however, an air of mystery over the house, and the housekeeper Mrs Bunch tells Stephen that he is not the first child to live at the house. Mr Abney earlier took in two other children, a girl named Phoebe and an Italian boy named Giovanni, but both mysteriously disappeared. Moreover, the house seems to be haunted by a pair of children, with pale faces and a gap in their chests where their hearts should be.
James himself once wrote that in a fictitious ghost story the ghost should be malevolent or odious, but in "Lost Hearts" he broke his own rule. The ghostly children may be frightening in appearance, but they are only malevolent towards Abney, who fully deserves their malice. Towards Stephen, the hero of the story, they are protective, trying to save him from the fate which they themselves suffered at his hands.
"Lost Hearts" has some features in common with both of the two earlier the "Ghost Stories for Christmas". With the first, "The Stalls of Barchester", it shares a central character who suffers retribution for an evil deed he has committed, but in that story there is no identifiable ghost and the possibility is left open that the villainous Doctor Haynes is the victim not of vengeful supernatural entities but of his own tormented imagination and guilty conscience. With the second, "A Warning to the Curious", it shares the feature of a very real ghostly presence, but Paxton, the protagonist of "A Warning..." is, unlike Abney, a sympathetic figure who in no way deserves the dreadful retribution which he inadvertently brings upon himself. One feature which sets "Lost Hearts" apart from its predecessors is that, at around 35 minutes, it is considerably shorter than either.
Simon Gipps-Kent, who plays Stephen, was a well-known child actor of the seventies. He continued acting into adulthood but was to die tragically of a drug overdose at the age of 28. Here he gives a solid performance, but the best comes from Joseph O'Connor as Abney, the avuncular old scholar whose seemingly benevolent demeanour masks a deadly obsession with occult knowledge and a total lack of concern for anyone other than himself. James was a devout Christian and may have intended the story as a warning against dabbling in the occult.
Another feature of this dramatisation is the music; Giovanni's hurdy-gurdy plays a more central role in this film than it did in James's story, and contributes to the eerie, disturbing atmosphere. The film was shot in and around Ormesby Hall in Lincolnshire, the producers having managed to find a stately home that not only resembles James's description of Abney's country house but is also located in the same county. The conventional way of making horror stories and ghostly tales would have been to set them in a crumbling Victorian Gothic pile; Ormesby is nothing of the sort but an elegant Georgian neoclassical building from the Age of Reason. Like its owner, however, the house is hiding its secrets. A façade of reason can conceal the most terrifying unreason. This is a superbly atmospheric production, on a part with "A Warning to the Curious" and considerably better than "The Stalls of Barchester". 9/10.