Product Details

• Actors: Henrietta Barry, Reginald Beck, Ballard Berkeley, Patricia Cutts, Anthony Dawson
• Directors: Reginald Beck
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Madacy Records
• VHS Release Date: September 19, 1997
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 630411799X
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #163,766 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can Life Imitate Art?, July 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Long Dark Hall [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This movie was made during a rather poignant time in Rex's life. Not an MAreicna made movie but it was the first since Rex's involvement with the suicide of American Actress Carol Landis. They claimed he was her lover and she comitted suicide when he wanted to break it off. IT was mentioned that she was carrying his child too. All this reached second wife Lili Palmer who was on the East coast acting in the theater. Rex denied it, Lili supported him throughout the trial and no one will know the truth. This movie is about a man who is accused of killing his lover and how his wife finds out and stands by his side. The ending is truly suspenseful! Get this Video!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars British Noir from Half a Century Past, May 21, 2007

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Long Dark Hall [VHS] (VHS Tape)

You wonder how the two stars could face each other playing the parts they did, only a few years after Rex Harrison was caught with his pants down and Carole Landis lay tragically dead, a suicide? Lilli Palmer stuck by her man and she and "Sexy Rexy" were banished from Hollywood--at the time, people thought, forever.

Here they play a married man with a gorgeous wife who just can't keep from straying. He's having a passionate affair with a young showgirl, who just happens to wind up murdered, and because his knife is left at the scene of the crime, a seedy theatrical boarding house run by Brenda de Banzie, the coppers come for him, shocking his wife. Lilli's parents come to survey the emotional wreackage left in the wake of the revelation of Rex's affair. Funny how she's German of course, but she has conventional English parents (no explanation given for her wobbly accent).

The real killer is disclosed early on, and he becomes obsessed with Lilli Palmer and manages to insert himself into her life little by little. This is the chilling, creepy part of the movie, quite suspenseful, but most of the picture is a kind of dull trial drama set in a frame story of an American anti-capital punishment journalist who begs his UK confrere for one last story to use as the final setpiece in a book he's writing about unfairly condemned men. "I've got just the case for you, old chap, the Rex Harrison story," and the movie begins. In a sense THE LONG DARK HALL is a replay of Hitchcock's THE PARADINE CASE, and they probably skimped by using the same Old Bailey set and the same motheaten barrister wigs and robes.

Rex seems to be acting out the tortures of the damned, while Lilli sometimes wears a look on her face that says, serves him right, the cheating schweinhund. The "long dark hall" of the title is strangely underused, considering it's pretty atmospheric and positively cries out for a second scene in which the killer tries to strangle Lilli Palmer there. Alas no! Nonetheless it's a hardcore noir affair and well worth watching for its damned-if-you-do, nobody-cares attitude towards individual fate and collective responsibility.

5.0 out of 5 stars a very good movie, February 19, 2009

By 

D. Guenzel - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Long Dark Hall [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I have to agree with the New York Times reviewer who called this film "a tidy little murder drama" and added that it was "an unusually literate and impressively acted film." It is all of that.

Rex Harrison personally produced the film along with the famous screenwriter Nunnally Johnson.

Good music, good writing, good photography and great acting are what gives this little gem its distinction. The "film noir" look is beautiful to see and the performances of all the players are of the very first class. Britain was awash at the time with highly talented movie makers in front of and behind the cameras, so almost any film from that period has interest.

There is an excellent courtroom scene in which the prosecuting attorney is beautifully played by the great Denis O'Dea, while the defense attorney part is equally well done by co-director Anthony Bushell. It's a nice sequence.

As the wife who stands by her flawed man, Lilli Palmer gives another of her sensitive, touching performances. She was in a class by herself. She was always good, but stood out in many films like THE RAKE'S PROGRESS (NOTORIOUS GENTLEMAN in the USA), THE LONG DARK HALL and most impressive of all, THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR. Modern actresses could learn a thing or two (or three or four) from this superb artiste.

A very good film worth seeing. A pity the only videos available are quite poor-quality affairs which sadly detract from the visual impact of the picture. One can only hope that this will be rectified one day soon.

Highly recommended.