Thriller based on an English play. The ABC couldn't give up that habit.
It was called the first live drama the ABC made in 1961. I thought that went to Hedda Gabler. Maybe that was taped first or something. Or they went off the press material.
Plot
Set in "Corinth House" a private hotel in London run by Mrs Beaclerc with the assistance of the maid, Nora. The residents include Miss Malleson, a retired headmistress, Miss Figgis and Major Shales.
She is visited
by an ex pupil, Madge Donnythrope. An old friend of Miss Malleson's, Mrs Heysham, is looking for a reference for Madge from Miss Malleson. It turns out that sixteen years earlier Miss
Malleson disciplined Madge for an unspecified offence and she refuses to give the reference. Madge vows revenge.
Madge moves in to Corinth House and starts making Miss Malleson's life a misery. She destroys an important letter and turns away Mrs Heysham. Miss Malleson accuses Madge of being responsible but Mrs Beauclerc supports Madge.
Eventually the support of Miss Figgis leads to Madge's deceptions being uncovered. She has a breakdown, confessing all. Miss Malleson, feeling pity for her former student, offers to look after Madge.
Cast
- Enid Lorimer as Miss Malleson
- Diana Perryman as Madge Donnythorpe
- Gwen Bevan as Mrs. Beauclerc, the manageress
- Audrey Teesdale as Nora, the maid
- Gwen Plumb as Mrs. Heysham
- Ida Newton as Miss Figgis
- Hugh Stewart as Major Shales
Original play
Pamela Hansford Johnson (1912-1986) wrote the original play. It was first performed in 1948.
Other adaptations
The play was filmed for British TV by the BBC in 1950 and ITV in 1956. It was filmed for Canadian TV in 1958 and Us TV in 1953.
It was adapted for Australian radio in 1958. It had been adapted for Australian radio in 1952.
It was published in 1954 with an introductory essay.
The play was performed in August 1960 by Tamworth Dramatic Society as part of the Arts Council of Australia 1960 Country Drama Festival. Other plays performed include Swamp Creatures, Nude with Violin and Ring Round the Moon - and the adjudicator was Neil Hutchinson. So maybe that helped the ABC decide to film this.
Production
It was shot in Sydney. It was directed and adapted by Bill Bain (1929-82). I think it was his first TV play in Australia. He left for Britain in the early 60s and had a lot of success doing TV there, winning an Emmy for Upstairs Downstairs. He directed a feature, Whatever Happened to Jack and Jill and died very young age 52. He was a former school teacher.
It was the Australian TV debut of veteran radio actor Enid Lorimer who had recently returned to Australian from London.
Design - Desmonde Downing. Technical supervision - John Hicks. Adaptation and produced by Bill Bain. Assistant technical producer- Bruce Valentine. Floor manager - Bill Phillips.
Reception
The Australian Woman's Weekly called it "excellent".
CORINTH HOUSE," the first play of the A.B.C.'s live TV season for 1961, set a standard that, if stuck to, means hours of enjoyment for televiewers. It was excellent. "Corinth House" is a private hotel in London. Qne of its residents is Miss Malleson (Enid Lorimer), a retired headmistress who is content to end her days in the hotel. Her life is disrupted by a meeting with Madge Donnythorpe (Diana Perryman), an ex-pupil whom, 16 years previously, she was forced to discipline publicly. Madge, now a widow, moves into Corinth House and proceeds to persecute Miss Malleson, and the play develops into a struggle between the two.
The Sydney Morning Herald said "The outstanding and positive thing about this play is its utter suitability to the medium of television" starring "two actresses of exceptional power.
The Sunday Sydney Morning Herald called it "a winner". TV Times called it "grim but satisfactory".
Overseas
In 1962 it was reported the production had sold overseas. TV week reported this in July 1961.
It screened in CBS in July 1961 as part of the International Hour.
 |
| SMH 16 Feb 1961 p 7 |
 |
| AWW 1 March 1961 p 62 |
 |
| The Age 15 March 1961 p 5 |
 |
| The Age Supplement 9 March 1961 p 3 |
 |
| The Age 9 March 1961 p 35 |
 |
| SMH 19 Feb 1961 p88 |
 |
| SMH 15 Feb 1961 p 17 |
 |
| SMH 13 Feb 1961 p 11 |
 |
| SMH 13 Feb 1961 p 12 |
 |
| SMH 12 Feb 1961 p 98 |
 |
| 15 Feb 1961 p 17 |
 |
| The Bridgeport Post 25 July 1961 p 20 |
 |
| SMH 13 Aug 1960 p 22 |
 |
| Los Angeles Evening Citizen News 29 July 1961 p 8 |
 |
 |
Forgotten Australian TV Plays: Corinth House
by Stephen Vagg
June 16, 2021
Stephen Vagg turns his attention to a 1961 gaslighting thriller, Corinth House.
“Gaslighting” has become a bit of a hot term in recent years. It seems to be particularly in vogue for opinion pieces on abusive relationships and political discourse. For those unfamiliar with the expression (or are you? Because I swear, I told you? sorry – gaslighting joke), “gaslighting” is used to describe a form of psychological abuse where a person or group makes someone question their sanity, perception of reality, or memories. Most of us know someone who is being gaslit, or who is accused of being a gaslighter: an abusive partner; a dodgy nurse at an old person’s home; a psychopathic co-worker; a presenter on Sky News.
The term isn’t exactly a new one: it has its origins in a 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton, Gas Light (also known as Gaslight or Angel Street). This was hugely successful – it became one of the longest running non musicals in Broadway history, was filmed a number of times (notably in 1944 with Ingrid Bergman), and spawned a score of imitators. As the critic David Shipman once put it, there was a time in the 1940s when you could not walk into a cinema without seeing someone try to drive a woman insane: Rebecca, Suspicion, Dark Waters, My Name is Julia Ross, So Evil My Love, The Spiral Staircase, Cry Wolf, etc. The sub-genre tailed off in the 1950s but revived with Les Diaboliques and has never gone out of fashion (Scent of Fear, Rosemary’s Baby, What Lies Beneath, The Girl on the Train).
Several early Australian TV plays were based on gaslighting thrillers. The ABC did 1958 versions of Gaslight and another Hamilton play, The Governess. In 1960, there was Reflections in Dark Glasses, about which I’ve written previously. And in 1961, we got Corinth House.
This was based on a 1948 play by the prolific British author Pamela Hansford Johnson, who wrote novels, biographies and essays as well as plays (some trivia: she was once married to an Australian writer, Gordon Neil Stewart, before marrying the novelist-chemist-playwright Sir CP Snow, with whom she co-authored several stage works). Corinth House was never turned into a feature film but was adapted several times for TV and radio, before the ABC decided to film it for local screens in 1961. The director and screenwriter of this production was Bill Bain, who later made Harlequinade (about which I have also written elsewhere).
The action takes place in an English residential hotel. One of its residents is Miss Malleson (Enid Lorimer), a retired headmistress, who is visited by ex-pupil, Madge Donnythrope (Diana Perryman). It turns out that years ago at school, Madge was disciplined by Malleson for an unspecified offence (“she bought disgrace on herself”) and still has not got over it: when the former headmistress refuses to provide an important reference, Madge determines to get revenge by convincing the other hotel residents that Miss Malleson is insane.
Corinth House is a fun slice of old-school gaslighting melodrama, which remains unexpectedly fresh to modern audiences in several ways: its depiction of the impact of childhood trauma, for instance, plus the hints of something kinky going on under the surface (what was the offence exactly? Something sexual? Is the female boarding house manager keen on Madge?), and its all-too-believable portrayal of the ease with which everyone assumes the old lady has gone crazy. The central idea is very strong – I mean, who hasn’t wanted to get revenge on an old school teacher? – and it’s nice to see such a female-driven thriller (there’s only one man in the cast, and he does not do much). It provides a great leading role for Enid Lorimer, little remembered these days but a name at the time because of her stage success in England; she’s excellent. Some of the other performers are hammy, but the story holds and there are nice directorial touches, such as Audrey Teesdale’s maid constantly sneaking a smoke.
The production was one of the few Australian TV plays to sell to America – it screened in 1961 as part of International Hour on CBS (which had also shown Outpost). I wish the story had been adapted to be set in Australia, but Corinth House was still entertaining.
 |
 |
 |
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment