Please suggest "atmospheric" 40's English films

Cafe Society
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I’ve just been re-watching The Uninvited with Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey today (for the umpty-umpth time)… one of my all-time favorite films. Not so much because of the ghost story (which is one of the best ever put on film IMHO), but for that 40’s English village atmosphere-- black and white, big houses, a few servants scattered around, drinking tea, dressing for dinner, fog, of course, and if not a ghost, then at least a nice murder…

My other favorite film is Rebecca, which has a lot of that going on, too. There are some other films that sort of capture this spirit… Laura is one. Also a modern one, Dead Again. There used to be a web site where you could find films by mood, but I’ve lost it.

Can anyone suggest other films of this type? Possibly sleepers, unknowns, obscure, forgotten. Preferably made in the 30’s or 40’s. With fall/winter coming on, I’m feeling in the mood for big fireplaces, and breakfast side tables laden with chafing dishes, tweedy walks with the dogs along the moors (and no apparent need to work)… you get the idea. Thx.

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I Know Where I’m Going is the first one that came to mind.

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Thanks ever so! Just added it to my Netflix queue.

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I’m assuming you’ve seen The Third Man. If not, you should add it to the queue.

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I like the film A Brief Encounter.

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For atmospheric English ghost stories, I recommend The Innocents (1961).

7

Blithe Spirit. Margaret Rutherford is marvellous.

A Matter of Life and Death.

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Another is Dead of Night (1945)

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Oh, I will warn you–I weep copiously at that one no matter how often I have seen it. The first whiff of Rachmaninoff at the opening credits, and I’m gone.

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Seconded. It’s the first one I thought of too. Beautifully shot, like other Powell/Pressburger films.

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Good suggestions, all!

12

Green for Danger is another little gem of a film. It’s a murder mystery with a good dose of black comedy, set in a village hospital. It’s got Alastair Sim in it, need I say more?

13

I cannot recommend Passport to Pimlico (1949) highly enough. A small London neighborhood discovers some old land grant from the King a couple of centuries back, and declares itself an independent sovereign nation. I’m not sure it has the particular atmospherics you’re looking for, as it is distinctly urban and features most working class Londoners. But it’s a wonderful film nonetheless.

Also, The Man in the White Suit (1951), an early Alec Guinness film, somewhat of a comic class warfare film.

These are my two favorite British films from that general era.

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Ministry of Fear is pretty good.

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Gaslight. Released in 1944, it stars Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and Joseph Cotten. MGM produced it, but it’s set in London, so that might qualify it as an English film.

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Dammit, and I’m already engaged again! :slight_smile:

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Aren’t most Agatha Christie films basically this?

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That’s the one I came in to recommend - as I recall, it has all the elements the OP is looking for.

“The Third Man”, mentioned above, is a wonderful film and should be seen anyways, but note that it is NOT the kind of movie the OP is looking for, as it’s set in post-war vienna, not a little English town!

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I just watched “Suspicion”, doubly good because it had Cary Grant.

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If you like Rebecca (and I adore it too) you might enjoy Jane Eyre, with Joan Fontaine, Orson Welles, and painfully young Elizabeth Taylor / Peggy Ann Garner. Then there’s the other Bronte adaptation starring the other Rebecca star: Wuthering Heights, with Olivier and Merle Oberon as the IMHO hateful lead romantic duo that for some reason everyone wants to see together. (I always root for poor David Niven.)

Not in the right time period, but an oddly creepy film, is The Chalk Garden with Deborah Kerr (whose stiff coolness actually works here) and adorable Hayley Mills who’s determined to uncover her governess’s dark secrets, assuming she has any… (Spoiler alert: yes, she does. :D)