Ghost Camera

Introduction

Following the successful release of the independently made Money For Speed (1933), which co-starred Ida Lupino and was edited by David Lean, Bernard Vorhaus decided to accept an offer to work for Twickenham Studios, at that time one of Britain's busiest. Their resident editor, Jack Harris, was otherwise busy and so he was able to get Lean to edit The Ghost Camera (1933), one of Vorhaus' best-known British films. This neat little thriller was based on a story by J. Jefferson Farjeon, who also provided material for Hitchcock's Number Seventeen (1932) and three early films by Michael Powell, including The Phantom Light (1934).

The film shows many of the characteristic touches that graced Vorhaus and Lean's previous collaboration, especially the inventive camerawork and fast pacing as well as a fondness for using real locations whenever possible. The story is decked out with a number of unusual and innovative stylistic touches, such as a pre-credit sequence and creative use of the subjective camera during a flashback, devices that were highly original at the time and that would only become more common years later. There are also a number of imaginative and witty transitions from one scene to the next, such as the shots in which Kendall's silly ass hero tries to track down Lupino. Lean's editing is seen at its most creative and flamboyant in the sequences following the arrest of John Mills' character, in which the word "murder" is spelled one letter at a time, cutting from one journalist's report to another; and in the vertiginous overlapping dissolves used when he staggers into the court room.

By combining such ambitious touches with atmospheric low-key cinematography and a light touch with his actors, Vorhaus quickly joined Michael Powell at the forefront of directors trying to forge their way ahead in the quota quickies.

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Sergio Angelini