Crow Hollow

Based on the 1950 novel by Dorothy Eden. A newly wed, young couple move into the husband's large family home, populated by his three dotty aunties and a mysterious maid. Before long the young bride is fearing for her life. Some reviews complain of it being slow but I certainly did not find that to be the case. For a start it's only 70 minutes long, but I found the characters all interesting & well acted. Plenty of atmosphere & some good scenes of suspense. Crow Hollow is my sort of house!

Not exactly good, but the photography by Robert LaPresle helps compensate for the cheap sets while papering over the cracks in Michael McCarthy's wildly inconsistent direction of this adaptation of Dorothy Eden's 1950 Gothic novel populated largely by women, in what resembles a very low budget rehash of 'The Three Weird Sisters' (1948), with Natasha Parry in the role played by Nova Pilbeam in the original.

Both are lured from London to an old dark house in the middle of nowhere occupied by three wacky old aunts; including Esma Cannon as an expert on spiders!

Why did he even marry her? That's the question that soon comes to mind as you watch "Crow Hollow". After all, after a whirlwind courtship, Dr. Armour marries Ann and then barely shows her any attention at all and completely dismisses her concerns--and she has plenty! It's obvious this is no match made in heaven. So why did the Doctor marry her and exactly what is going on in this weird mansion filled with his strange aunts and that lousy maid? And, could someone really be attempting to kill her?

This is a pretty good mystery/suspense picture. Not a must-see by any stretch but exciting and with a nice ending. Worth seeing with nice performances all around and a well written story. And, one more reason why you should NEVER marry someone after knowing them only one week!!

By the way, at one point in the film Ann has a tarantula dropped on her. They then say she could have died and that the bug was poisonous. Well, tarantulas are mildly poisonous (like a bee sting) and you will not die from its bite. This is just bad writing and I've heard this repeated several times in films (such as "Dr. No").

I am 70 years of age and my family had our first t.v. (a "Murphy" 12" one channel BBC only) in 1954.I can still remember seeing Nora Nicholson playing her specialised role of a dotty old woman from those days in similar mystery plays.Esma Cannon another eccentric actress was an Australian who I first recognised playing a comic seamstress, "Lill" in the sit-com "The Rag Trade" in the early sixties.

The other reviewers have adequately commented on "Crow Hollow" (1952) and I see no reason to dispute their comments nor the official IMDb.com. rating which I would describe as adequate.The screen play writer & director very properly held back the solution of the mystery of who murdered the character maid "Willow" until the last reel; and why our dark brunette, newly married heroine's life had been previously threatened.Yes I too thought it reasonably well acted and I stayed the course to award it an rating of 6/10.

You have to hand it to British audiences and producers in the 40's, 50's and 60's, they loved their murder mysteries, some were terrible, some iconic, fortunately for a whodunnit addict like myself there are still so many gems to discover.

Today I found Crow Hollow, and it is partly what you'd expect from a 1950's British mystery, The House is creaky, the characters are eccentric, everyone is in the exact place you'd expect them to be for the time, with the exception of Esma Cannon, Aunt Judith, who's a spider loving crazy Aunt, an actress I've always adored in comedy, she's fun to watch as always.

It's generally well acted, engaging, and certainly an entertaining watch. I wouldn't call it a classic, but I really enjoyed, 8/10