A dead man sends a message through a broken violin. Jacques Tourneur does séance cinema in 11 minutes.
This short looks at the possibility that those who have passed on can communicate with us in ways we least expect.
Direction
Tourneur's shadow play and restraint—horror mastery in embryo.
Writing
Carey Wilson's narrator voice: grandfatherly doom with a smile.
Director
Jacques Tourneur
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was part of MGM's 'John Nesbitt's Passing Parade' shorts series, not the better-known 'Crime Does Not Pay'—though Tourneur directed for both. The studio used these as director training grounds.
Spiritualism was still commercially viable in 1938 Hollywood; this short cashes in on séance culture without the camp of Thirteen Ghosts or the prestige of Blithe Spirit. Tourneur treats it with dead seriousness.
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