Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 22306 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| THE TELL TALE HEART | 1957 | 1957-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 7 mins 22 secs Credits: Production: Dumar Produced and directed by Doug Collender Narrator: Norman Mason Cast: Norman Mason Props & Make Up: Walter Clark Graphics Les Greaves Genre: Amateur |
| Summary An amateur production adapted from the Edgar Allen Poe story, produced and directed by Doug Collender. This was an experiment in low light filmmaking, the darkened scenes bathed in red light. |
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Description
An amateur production adapted from the Edgar Allen Poe story, produced and directed by Doug Collender. This was an experiment in low light filmmaking, the darkened scenes bathed in red light.
Title: Dumar
Title: The Tell Tale Heart – Adapted for the Screen from the Works of Edgar Allan Poe [Title appears over the picture of a corner house lit by a street lamp. A window in the house shows red curtains lit by light from the room.]
Credits: With Reg. Townsend, Jack Wrightson, Dave Watson...
An amateur production adapted from the Edgar Allen Poe story, produced and directed by Doug Collender. This was an experiment in low light filmmaking, the darkened scenes bathed in red light.
Title: Dumar
Title: The Tell Tale Heart – Adapted for the Screen from the Works of Edgar Allan Poe [Title appears over the picture of a corner house lit by a street lamp. A window in the house shows red curtains lit by light from the room.]
Credits: With Reg. Townsend, Jack Wrightson, Dave Watson & Walter Clark.
[Credits appear over a closer view of the corner house]
Credit: Narrator & Protagonist Norman Mason [Credit appears over a yet closer view of the corner house]
The film opens in a barely lit room, where a man is looking through some partially closed curtains.
The man moves to a table where there is a single oil lamp. He muses about why he murdered an old man (whether a father figure or employer is unclear) when he isn't interested in his gold. He briefly picks up the old man's purse, and then strokes his beard.
The man lights the smaller lamp, and walks away. Leaving the camera on a close up of the glass shade of the oil lamp on the table.
The next scene simulates the murder by use of suggestive low light and acting. A point of red light moves on the screen, then the man’s face appears bathed in red light with his hand holding onto the lamp. The narrator describes how he tries to open the light from the lantern a bit more, but a noise disturbs the victim he’s trying to pursue, who apparently suddenly sits bolt upright in bed. The man opens the lamp bit more, and when he does the light reveals the the old man staring at him. The man diverts his eyes from the penetrating gaze by momentarily looking downwards.
The sound follows the narrative with the beating of the old man’s heart. The camera fixes on the man with his lamp, seemingly transfixed by the old man’s stare. The man moves from the doorway to the bed, and apparently attacks the old man as he cries out.
The old man is dead and the film shows a knife lying on a cloth, which the killer then uses to dismember the body. The killer then goes to work hiding the remains beneath floorboards in the room. The man replaces some carpet over the floorboards.
The man goes downstairs to answer a knock at the door. He opens the door to three policemen. They explain a disturbance had been reported, and they were there to investigate. The killer invites them in and he takes them into the room where the murder was committed.
The murderer gives each them a glass of wine, and he sits down on a chair which he places on the exact spot where he has hidden the old man’s dismembered body. He and the policemen drink the wine, the killer convinced that they believe his alibi and that he is innocent of any misdeed.
However, the murderer / narrator feels guilty and becomes disturbed. He begins to hear thumping noises like the heartbeat of the dead man and starts to feel unwell. He drinks his wine and the policemen relax by removing their helmets. The killer become increasingly agitated, and stands up pacing the floor. The policemen sip at their wine while engaging him in conversation, all the while the killer becoming more disturbed, and in the end he pounds his fists on the floor where his victim lies hidden.
Credit: Props and Make Up – Walter Clark
Credit: Graphics - Les Greaves
Credit: Produced and Directed by Doug Collender
Title: Dumar
Title: The Tell Tale Heart – Adapted for the Screen from the Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Context
Adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s famous short story of the same name, The Tell-Tale Heart’was created in the 1960s by a group of amateur filmmakers associated with the Newcastle and District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA). This film was created as an experiment in low light filmmaking, the darkened scenes bathed in red light to create a graphic effect.
The Newcastle and District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) was first founded in 1927 by a group of wealthy cinema and...
Adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s famous short story of the same name, The Tell-Tale Heart’was created in the 1960s by a group of amateur filmmakers associated with the Newcastle and District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA). This film was created as an experiment in low light filmmaking, the darkened scenes bathed in red light to create a graphic effect.
The Newcastle and District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) was first founded in 1927 by a group of wealthy cinema and photographic enthusiasts in Newcastle. Around the same time, four other places across the UK decided to set up their own film-related clubs. It was then decided in July 1927 at a dinner in a London Hotel to group together in an organisation called the Amateur Cinematographer’s Association (ACA). Newcastle & District ACA is the last remaining Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) club – renamed to ‘Newcastle ACA Film and Video Makers’ – which has now (in 2020) operated for over 90 years. For many amateur filmmakers, their hobby became a passion. It wasn’t unusual for gifted amateurs to take on semi-professional roles such as commissions to film local events, work for charitable organisations, industries and local councils. The Yorkshire-based filmmaker Charles Chislett is an example of an amateur filmmaker who used his craft and expertise to work for organisations such as the Pastoral Aid Society (CPAS) recording community programmes and activities in Dale Days with CPAS (1947) and New Lives for Old (1951), and produce industrial documentaries such as Men of Steel (1948). One early Newcastle & District ACA member, Arthur G. Greaves ARPS, was chairman of Montagu Pictures, an amateur Newcastle film production unit, which won international and national awards. He worked for Gateshead Council to record the visit to Gateshead by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on 22 February 1939 where they officially opened Team Valley Trading Estates. The film is available on the NEFA website here: County Borough of Gateshead Visit of Their Majesties the King And Queen 22 February 1939 The director of The Tell-Tale Heart, Doug Collender, worked professionally in television production but still pursued filmmaking for fun and to record family life. He joined Tyne Tees TV in December 1958 and became a Senior Lighting Director, working on both outside broadcast and studio productions, including the 1980s cult live music programme, The Tube. As part of Newcastle ACA film production units Collender worked on documentaries recording big Tyneside events such as The Centenary of the Blaydon Races 1862-1962 and cine club dramas. The beautifully constructed 0900 was awarded a gold star in Amateur Cine World’s 1967 ‘Ten Best’ competition, an annual event that ran from 1936 to 1986 and was the highlight of the year for amateur moviemakers who referred to it as ‘our Oscars’. The cast of The Tell-Tale Heart includes Reginald Townsend, a civil engineer with the North Eastern Electricity Board who acted in several Newcastle ACA amateur fictions. The film is an adaptation of a literary classic by writer, editor, and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1809 to two actors: David Poe Jr and Elizabeth ‘Eliza’ Arnold Hopkin Poe. Poe was orphaned at the age of only three, his father abandoning the family shortly before his mother died from tuberculosis. He was separated from his sister and brother and adopted by John Allen and Frances Allen, becoming close to his foster mother. His relationship was always fractious with John Allen who discouraged Poe’s early talent for poetry and eventually cut him out of his will. In 1835, Poe obtained a license to marry his thirteen-year old cousin, Virginia Clemm, the couple remaining together for eleven years until her untimely death. It is often believed that losing Virginia inspired some of Poe’s writing such as his last complete poem, ‘Annabel Lee’ which was released in 1849, shortly after Poe’s death. Poe became best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is considered by many to be the inventor of the detective fiction genre and he has been credited for his contribution towards the emerging genre of science fiction influencing writers such as Jules Verne, Ray Bradbury and HP Lovecraft. His detective stories inspired authors such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, known for the Sherlock Holmes series, and the film director Alfred Hitchcock who claimed that he was inspired to make suspense films due to the short stories he read by Edgar Allen Poe. References to Edgar Allen Poe and his work appear in everything from Batman and The Simpsons to music by American hip-hop group Public Enemy. In addition to The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe’s most famous work includes: The Fall of House Usher (1939), The Black Cat (1843), and The Raven (1845). The Tell-Tale Heart was first published in 1843 and it is considered as one of Poe’s best short stories and a classic of the Gothic fiction genre. The story is retold by an unreliable narrator but it is uncertain who is being addressed, though many believe it is a confession to a prison warden, a judge, a reporter, a doctor, or a psychiatrist. The narrative is driven by the narrator’s insistence on his sanity as opposed to his ‘innocence’. The strict attention to plot is contradicted as the names, occupations, relationship, and place of residence are ambiguous. Due to this, many readers create their own narratives to fill in the missing pieces. The narrator is generally assumed to be male – and often thought to be the son of ‘The Old Man’ - however, as no pronouns are used to clarify this, the narrator could actually be a woman. It has been suggested that Poe’s inspiration for the unreliable narrator may have been different real-life murders, such as the murder of John White in 1830, and the trial of James Wood in 1840. The prosecutor for the former case wrote about how the murderer’s guilt would eventually reveal itself and that the murderer would feel the severity of the crime “beating at his heart, rising in his throat, and demanding closure.” In terms of the latter, James Wood murdered his daughter but plead that he was not guilty on the grounds of insanity. Due to this, the jury had to question whether or not Wood was mad rather than if he was guilty. Poe worked as a reporter for Alexander’s Weekly Messenger at the time and he covered the trial. He wrote that he believed that Wood was mad as he believed that his calmness was not due to him being a “premeditated and cool-blooded” killer but instead it was merely the “cunning of the maniac”. Basing the story on real-life murders may be what made The Tell-Tale Heart so popular. The story has been adapted many times, with the first believed to be a silent film from 1928. Another adaptation was made in 1953 as an X-rated short animation by UPA productions, nominated for an Academy Award. It featured the distinctive voice of James Mason as narrator – a popular British actor and box office attraction in the 1940s, appearing in British movies The Seventh Veil (1945) and Odd Man Out (1947). He was adept at playing flawed characters as seen in his motion picture career in the United States, with classic roles as a failing, alcoholic actor in A Star Is Born (1954) with Judy Garland and a middle aged academic, Humbert Humbert, with an all-consuming obsession on the teenage daughter of his landlady in Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 movie based on Nabokov’s book Lolita. Nabokov named Humbert Humbert’s first love, Annabel Leigh, after Poe’s last finished poem, said to be inspired by his young wife. References: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/watch-90-years-north-east-13386394 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Leonard_Poe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tell-Tale_Heart https://www.biography.com/news/edgar-allan-poe-horror-stories-facts (A&E Television Networks, 2014) https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/12/edgarallanpoe http://www.poedecoder.com/Qrisse/footprints.php |
