Four elderly gentlemen, who are telling ghost stories to each other, suddenly start experiencing the presence of the spirit of a girl.

There are some films that need to be saved from being lost to time, in my opinion this is one of them.

What we have here is a film that I consider to be an absolute classic, yet there are so many people who have never seen it, or even worse, never even heard of it. That to me is just criminal and thats why I’m determined that this film doesn’t get lost to the past.

Those who have seen this film will more than likely understand what I mean as those same people always seem to have the same opinion, that this feature is a perfect example of a spooky, suspenseful, thrilling story. It also seems to put a smile on their faces when being talked about.

The film is based on a book of the same name that was released in ’79 by author Peter Straub. There is a debate of whether the film failed in its adaptation of the book or not, though a debate like this is nothing new, it always happens when a book gets put on screen.

This film stars a classic cast of the likes of Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman, Craig Wasson, and Alice Krige. It also features some absolutely stunning cinematography and has an old school ghostly tale, what’s not to love?!

“The Ghost Story” is a true representation of the phrase, a perfect film for a rainy day. I sincerely hope that it finds new fans as it doersn’t deserve to be to lost to time, it deserves so much more.

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If you want to see “The Ghost Story” trailer then just click on the video below:

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Miscellaneous facts about the film:

Final theatrical feature film of veteran actors Melvyn Douglas, Fred Astaire, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

The pipe organ used is the same organ that was used by Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera (1925).

Both Fred Astaire (who plays Ricky Hawthorne) and Melvyn Douglas (who plays Dr. John Jaffery) are mentioned in Peter Straub’s source “Ghost Story” novel on which the movie is based.

Of the four actors who played the young versions of the veteran main characters, three died before reaching the age of 60: Kurt Johnson (Young Edward Wanderley) died of AIDS on February 12, 1986 at the age of 33, Tim Choate (Young Ricky Hawthorne) was killed in a motorcycle accident on September 24, 2004 at the age of 49 and Mark Chamberlin was killed in a bicycle accident on March 22, 2011 at the age of 55. As of 2023, Ken Olin is the only surviving member of the group.

Interiors were constructed inside the abandoned Union Station, the former New York Central Railroad’s passenger train station on Broadway in Albany, NY and included a two story set. The murder or death scene was filmed on the second floor of that set. Scenes were filmed in sequence and the two story set was significantly aged after the death scene so that it later appeared as the derelict house. After the movie, the old station was refurbished and restored to its former grandeur and served as office space for Fleet Bank and now Bank of America.

The big old spooky mansion was a matte painting designed by veteran Hollywood special effects whiz Albert Whitlock.

None of the film’s four veteran Hollywood actors (Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, John Houseman and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) had ever worked together in a screen movie before. However, Fairbanks and Houseman both appeared in the earlier documentary Starring Katharine Hepburn (1981) whilst Astaire and Fairbanks both appeared in the later documentary George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey (1984).

Dick Smith designed and created an eyeless and noseless naked apparition with rotting teeth and rotting breasts to appear in the scene where the audience would see what exactly was happening in Ricky’s nightmare. Despite being shown in promotional photos and in magazines, it never appeared in the final cut of the film. KNB EFX Group created a tribute piece to it, with his permission, that was featured in House on Haunted Hill (1999).

Peter Straub’s lengthy and extremely complex novel presents a number of obvious problems to anyone wishing to adapt it, and it was widely agreed that this film version had failed the book in many ways – admirers of the original were very critical of the various abbreviations, excisions and complete changes made to the original, and it was an expensive box-office failure. Both director John Irvin and leading lady Alice Krige claimed that the film had been extensively re-edited by the studio, and it was even said that this re-editing had tried to emphasize the young characters in the story rather than the old men who are at the heart of the plot.

Young Ricky Hawthorne says, “I can’t dance.” Old Ricky Hawthorne is played by Fred Astaire. This line wasn’t in the novel.

Searching for someone qualified to score a story dealing with elderly people, the production team was reminded of Le chat (1971), a French film about a bitter old couple spending time arguing. That’s how Philippe Sarde was hired and why some of the main theme of that precise film is repeatedly used in the score of “Ghost Story.”

Second of two ghost story horror pictures that veteran actor John Houseman made in a two year period. The first film had been John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980).

Second of two ghost story horror pictures that veteran actor Melvyn Douglas made in a two year period right at the end of his movie career. The first film was The Changeling (1980).

Apparently, the film rights to Peter Straub’s source novel were sold after it had been on the best seller list for five months.

The character of Sears James in the Peter Straub novel is quite clearly an Orson Welles character, given to puffing on enormous cigars, speaking very eruditely at all times, having cantankerous relationships with colleagues and at one point telling a very lengthy story with great relevance to the plot in a spellbinding way. In fact, the character is even specifically said by author Straub to bear a strong physical resemblance to Welles. Yet, in the film, the part is instead played by Welles’s former producing partner (and real-life arch-enemy) John Houseman, who, in the acting career he pursued in his 70s, made something of a specialty of playing roles for which Welles might once have been thought more suitable.

Reportedly, actors Alice Krige and Craig Wasson were “were knocked out at the idea of sharing this thriller” with the four veteran Hollywood actors they would be working with.

Author Peter Straub was unhappy with the final result, mainly due to how many important characters such as the Chowder Society’s fifth member Lewis Benedickt and teenager Pete Barnes were dropped from the story, and would not allow any further film adaptations of his books. Though in the years that followed he has softened up on it, while he maintains he’s still disappointed he has praised the film’s cast, music and atmosphere and is grateful that the film encouraged many people to seek out the book.

Screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen found the nearly five hundred page novel quite difficult to adapt into a two hours or less film. He actually suggested to Universal executives that it would work better as a miniseries like Salem’s Lot (1979) had after it had likewise been decided it wouldn’t work as a film, but they refused on the grounds that they had paid for a movie, and they would get a movie. On a related note, author Peter Straub has cited the novel ‘Salem’s Lot as an influence on the book.

The film cast includes three Oscar winners: John Houseman, Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal; and one Oscar nominee: Fred Astaire.

Publicity for this pictured declared that the film was in the tradition of Henry James and Edgar Allan Poe.

When the film debuted there was a great deal of buzz as it brought Astaire, Douglas, Fairbanks and Patricia Neal out of semi-retirement. This was the very last film to be made by the three legendary leading men and, paired with Houseman, whose career had been brought back from oblivion by The Paper Chase (1973) some eight years earlier, their prestige and gravitas made Ghost Story stood apart from other horror films of the day. A major reason for the participation of these three, not only to come out of retirement but to make a horror movie (the first for all three actors), was the success achieved by Laurence Olivier in Dracula (1979), which was also Olivier’s first and only horror film. Until this point, mid-century horror films had been formulaic and even campy. Dracula and Ghost Story, along with The Exorcist (1973), The Shining (1980) and The Omen (1976) (which featured the Hollywood giant Gregory Peck ) legitimized horror films and gave the genre a whole new life.

The film was made and released about two years after its source novel of the same name by Peter Straub had been first published in 1979.

Feature film debut of Ken Olin.

Apparently, horror author Stephen King once described Peter Straub’s source “Ghost Story” book as being “probably the best of the supernatural novels” since “The Other”, “The Exorcist”, and “Rosemary’s Baby”.

According to director John Irvin, leading man Fred Astaire was in a decidedly fraught emotional state for a good part of the filming and seemed to fear that he was about to die. In the event, he lived on until 1987.

Various scenes from the novel, such as the farmer Elmer Scales being driven by Eva to slaughter his family on Christmas morning because the lake she was drowned in was on his property and elderly versions of the Dedham sisters (only their younger selves are shown in the final film) finding their horses entirely drained of blood, were dropped from the film.

Obituaries for Peter Straub printed in September of 2022 have stated that he sold the film rights to his novel to Universal for $225,000 about five months before the book was published in January of 1979.

One strong hint that the film has been extensively and insensitively re-edited is that the celebrated and prominently-billed Patricia Neal barely appears in the film at all (although her character is very important in the novel).

This is the first of two early 1980s horror movies that starred a quartet of veteran actors who were all film luminaries and screen legends. Ghost Story (1981) starred Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, John Houseman and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. whilst House of the Long Shadows (1983) starred Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Carradine. A distinct difference is that whereas Ghost Story featured former A-list greats, House of the Long Shadows featured classic B-list horror greats.

Director John Irvin says on the audio commentary that he borrowed the bathtub scene from Henri-Georges Clouzot’s ‘Diabolique’ (1955) for the bathroom scene in ‘Ghost Story’ (1981).

A stand-in was used as one of the Young David/Don twins, so that a family portrait could be taken.

The picture was nominated for the Best Horror Film Saturn Award in 1982.

Two actors played dual roles in the film. Actress Alice Krige played both Eva Galli and Alma Mobley whilst actor Craig Wasson portrayed both Don Wanderley and David Wanderley.

Actors Patricia Neal and Melvyn Douglas has both previously appeared in Hud (1963) around eighteen years earlier.

Debut film of actors Robin Curtis and Michael O’Neill.

The music playing at the college dance is the 1911 popular college fraternity song, “The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi”.

Director John Irvin said he saw this story as a parable about the oppression of women by patriarchal male groups – an idea quite at odds with Peter Straub’s novel, which many have seen as essentially misogynistic.

Peter Straub’s novel concerns five old men who are haunted by a ghost from their past, but there are only four protagonists in this film version – one of the many changes to Straub’s plot which displeased admirers of the book.

Actress Alice Krige later went on to appear in another ghost story movie which was Silent Hill (2006).

One of two suspense-horror movies that child actor Lance Holcomb appeared in during 1981 with the other film being Venom (1981).

Two actors in this film later appeared in the “Naked Gun” franchise. John Houseman made his final film appearance in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) and Jacqueline Brookes appeared in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991).

One of two 1981 movies starring Craig Wasson, the other film was Arthur Penn’s Georgia’s Friends (1981).

Miguel Fernandes and Lance Holcomb, who played the villainous Bate brothers would both appear in films about killer snakes. Fernandes in Spasms (1983) and Holcomb in Venom (1981). While Holcomb was given an introducing credit in “Venom”, “Ghost Story” actually came out before it in most parts of the world. An even stranger coincidence, legendary actor Oliver Reed played major roles in both “Venom” and “Spasms”.

The scene where the younger chowder society members dance with Eva, straw hats are seen upon her bed.