The Canterville Ghost

This is a little gem of a movie, with lush sets and surprisingly good special effects, in a truly English (as opposed to a Disney/Mary Poppins British) setting and an attractive cast. Patrick Stewart brings the full weight of his Shakespearian background to bear, and creates a tragic and tender ghost, never lapsing into bathos or slapstick. Neve Campbell as the heroine is convincing as a brave, warm-hearted girl embarking on a gentle romance with the well-cast Daniel Betts. Kids will love the ghostly capers, teenagers and older family members will enjoy Ginny and Francis getting closer together, and empathise with the father-daughter conflict, and more mature watchers will be moved by the sad history of Sir Simon. A three-hanky movie. The only fly in the ointment was the entirely wasted presence of Joan Sims and Donald Sinden - "ham" really should have been off the menu in their case, but at least we don't have to see much of them.

I liked this version okay, but my favorite "Canterville Ghost" is the one 10 years before this one-- the 1986 version with Alyssa Milano and Sir John Gielgud. The 1986 movie was much better and more exciting than this one... More scary and funny things happened in it. I also thought they bothered to do better "ghostly" special effects. But the 1996 one is definitely worth seeing, none the less... It's a nice story and I thought that Patrick Stewart and Neve Campbell did a good job. The little brothers were annoying though in this one, and completely un-necessary to the movie. But the castles and the english scenery are so pretty in both. The music was much better in the 1986 version though.. even the opening scene was nicer of them going up to the castle in the horse drawn carriage, rather than in a car. So it's those little details that make the one a decade earlier a lot better than this one.

What cuteness, great adaptation, half youthful, half romantic, a little dramatic and almost nothing frightening, anyway, delicious ... Gracinha da Família, a simple and captivating film...

While there are still many variances from the original story, this version hewed much more closely to it than the 1944 film, which bore little more resemblance to the original than the name. I think this one was well served by the greater similarity.

I thought all the actors did a great job, though I was a bit put off by the peevishness of the father character during most of the movie. In the original story he was also a non-believer, but with much more good humor and sympathy.

I don't know if anyone has ever tried enacting the story as written but I'd be interested in seeing it if they did.

Neve Campbell and her family (small brothers, sympathetic mum, physicist and cynic father) travel from America to England when he lands a lucrative research post, and almost immediately strange things begin to happen in the de Canterville ancestry home.

Bumps and moans in the night, bloodstains, invisible hands on the shoulder - yes, there's a ghost about.

Oscar Wilde's story takes shape beautifully in this TV version, one of the numerous adaptations of his tale for children. Patrick Stewart is the ghostly Simon de Canterville, doomed to walk the house at night for all eternity for his earthly crimes, and he is watchable, especially wrestling with the pride of 400 years dead and no one to bow and scrape around him.

This being a fairy tale there's romance for Ginny as well in the shape of a local Duke (Daniel Betts) who is sympathetic to ghosts and very charming, as local Dukes so often are in these stories. Donald Sinden and Joan Sims play butler and housekeeper, shielding guilty secrets, and Leslie Philips appears briefly as the current representative of family de Canterville.

Recommended for children and adults alike, 'The Canterville Ghost' is charming, touching, and with just the right amount of suspense. The Americans may be paint-by-numbers stereotypes, but that doesn't matter. Without Stewart, I might have rated this much lower, but it definitely deserves high points for his performance alone.