M R James is perhaps the most celebrated author of ghost stories in the English language, but only one feature film has ever been based on his work, the 1957 British horror movie "Night of the Demon", loosely adapted from his "Casting the Runes". His stories have, however, occasionally appeared on television. I remember from my childhood that between 1971 and 1975 the BBC used to dramatise one every year under the title "A Ghost Story for Christmas". "The Stalls of Barchester", first shown in 1971, was the first of these. Three more entries were added between 1976 and 1978, based on stories by other writers.
It has been said that the classic Jamesian tale generally includes the following key elements:
1. An atmospheric setting, often in a historic town or remote part of the countryside
2. A gentleman-scholar as protagonist
3. The discovery of an antiquarian object that acts as the focus for supernatural forces.
Here the setting is an English cathedral, about as atmospheric and historic as one can get. (James borrowed the name "Barchester" from Trollope; Norwich was used for the exterior shots). The "antiquarian object" is a mysterious carving in the choir stalls. The "gentleman-scholar", however, does not appear in the main story, although he plays a role in the "framework" within which that story is set. In the 1930s that scholar, Dr Black, is cataloguing the Cathedral library when he comes across the diary of Dr Haynes, who held the position of Archdeacon in the 1870s. The diary contains some shocking revelations. We learn that the ambitious Haynes, coveting the position of Archdeacon, engineered the death of his elderly predecessor Dr Pulteney, but was subsequently plagued by visitations of a possibly supernatural nature. These visitations may be connected with some strange carvings in the Cathedral choir stalls, said to have been carved from the wood of a "hanging tree" once used for executions.
The last entry in the "A Ghost Story..." series which I watched was the second, "A Warning to the Curious". Like all the collection, both "A Warning..." and "The Stalls of Barchester" were written and directed by director Lawrence Gordon Clark, but there are some interesting differences between the two films. In "The Stalls of Barchester", Clark was to stick more closely to James's story than he was to do in the following year's film. He keeps the "framework story" in "The Stalls...", while dispensing with it in "A Warning..."; the main change he makes is to the date of the action. (In James's original the main story takes place in the 1810s rather than the 1870s and the framework story around 1900). Clark also invents the name "Dr Black" for the gentleman scholar, who was nameless in the original. (Black, played by Clive Swift, also makes an appearance in Clark's version of "A Warning...").
The visual look of the two films is also different. "A Warning to the Curious" was mostly shot outdoors, against the background of the wide open, wintry Norfolk countryside; it is the lighter of the two films, but the light is a bleak, harsh one. "The Stalls of Barchester", by contrast, is more enclosed and intimate, with most scenes taking place in a dimly lit indoors, either in the Cathedral itself or in the Archdeacon's residence.
Another difference lies in the way the protagonists are presented. Dr Haynes, as played in a good performance from Robert Hardy, is an unctuous hypocrite, a supposed man of God who has no scruples about committing murder in order to further his earthly ambitions. In "A Warning to the Curious", however, the main character, the amateur archaeologist Mr Paxton, is portrayed as highly sympathetic, probably more so than he was in James's story. (Another fine performance from Peter Vaughan). He is a man in late middle age, from a working-class background, and has recently lost his job. He is, however, a man with a genuine passion for history and hopes to make a find of real significance which will allow him to make a living as a professional archaeologist.
Although "The Stalls of Barchester" is officially called a "ghost story", there is no identifiable ghost; James presumably rejected the idea of having Haynes visited by the spirit of the deceased Pulteney. The possibility is left open (perhaps to a greater extent than in James's story) that Haynes is the victim not of vengeful supernatural entities but of his own tormented imagination and guilty conscience. The unearthly forces which confront Paxton are all too real.
"The Stalls of Barchester" is certainly atmospheric, but I didn't really enjoy it as much as "A Warning to the Curious". I think that the reason is that there is no character with whom the viewer can identify, unlike Vaughan's Paxton, a working-class Everyman who comes so close to success but who is unfairly struck down at the moment of what should have been his greatest triumph. If Archdeacon Haynes is struck down by malign forces it is no more than he deserves; it is difficult for the viewer to feel either sympathy or pity for such a man. Not so much a warning to the curious as a warning to the murderous. 7/10.
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