Movies
Ghost Story (1981, Melvyn Douglas, Alice Krige)
Director John Irvin took a prismatic, non-linear approach in this atmospheric adaptation of Peter Straub’s memorable and chilling 1979 horror novel Ghost Story.
In a small New England town, Edward Wanderly and his lifelong friends, a group of successful senior citizens, traditionally gathered to share drinks and ghost stories, but now they are haunted by their past, as the ghost of a beautiful woman they accidentally sent to a watery grave 50 years earlier seeks revenge. One of those rare films to treat elderly people as fully human, complicated characters.
Melvyn Douglas, who played Dr. John Jaffrey in Ghost Story, died five months before the film was released in December 1981. It was his last film appearance.
production details
Country: USA | Universal | 110 minutes
Release Year: 1981
Director: John Irvin
Producer: Burt Weissbourd
Cinematography: Jack Cardiff
Editor: Tom Rolf
Music: :Phillippe Sarde
Script: Lawrence D. Cohen
Production Design: Norman Newberry
cast
Patricia Neal as Stella Hawthorne
Alice Krige as Eva Galli / Alma Mobley
John Houseman as Sears James
Melvyn Douglas as Dr. John Jaffrey
Fred Astaire as Ricky Hawthorne
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Edward Charles Wanderley
Craig Wasson as Don Wanderley / David Wanderley
Jacqueline Brookes as Milly
Brad Sullivan as Sheriff Hardesty
Kurt Johnson as Young Wanderley
Ken Olin as Young Sears James
Mark Chamberlin as Young John Jaffrey