{
  "title": "BENIGHTED / THE OLD DARK HOUSE",
  "category": "[NOVEL; MOTION-PICTURE]",
  "article": "“…a play adapted from the novel of Mr. J. B. Priestley.”\n[Manchester Guardian, Dec. 4, 1937] “…to-night from the Regional… Dafydd Gruffydd, who has\ndone much good dramatic work in the last few months for the Welsh Regional. The play has a\nWelsh setting, the scene being ‘somewhere in the mountains.’ Gruffydd will also be the producer,\nand he has a strong cast which includes Norman Shelley and Barbara Powell.”\n[Times review of the movie] “A number of persons are accidentally assembled on a stormy night\nin an old house in Wales. It is the sort of house, as the style in which it is furnished makes very\nclear, in which one expects to find a pyromaniac locked in an upper chamber, an incredibly old\nand obviously wicked baronet dying in the best bedroom, and a dumb and drunken butler…”\n[William K. Everson] “Priestley’s original novel was rather uneven; he was generally much more\nat home with his ‘social’, semi-political books and plays—or with his simple, regional comedies of\nmanners… Elements of both schools of writing seem to be forced into Benighted, and get in the\nway of the melodrama too often. The one major difference between novel and film was that\nPriestley killed off his hero, Penderell, whereas indications in the film that this might have been a\nlast minute decision.”\n[Kevin Hagopian] “An allegory in social criticism, Priestley’s book concerned a group of\ntravelers who must unwillingly spend a night together in a strange Welsh home. There, in too-\nclose quarters, the classes collide, and the self-confidence of wealth and station wear thin. It was a\nnotably English story, and for Whale…the confrontation between rich, poor, and in-between was\none which was the essential truth of English society.”",
  "origination": "",
  "duration": "",
  "personnel": "",
  "extant_recordings": "",
  "chronology": "(WESTERN PROGRAMME—BBC)\n[Friday—8:20-9:40 PM]\nJanuary 1, 1937\n“Benighted”\nSCRIPT: Dafydd Gruffydd.\nPERSONNEL: Dafydd Gruffydd (producer).\n(WELSH PROGRAMME—BBC)\n[Saturday—8:00-9:10 PM]\nDecember 4, 1937\n“Benighted”\nSCRIPT: Dafydd Gruffydd.\nPERSONNEL: Dafydd Gruffydd (producer).\nCAST: Barbara Powell, Norman Shelley, et al.\n(WELSH HOME SERVICE—BBC)\n[Thursday—9:30-10:40 PM]\nDecember 5, 1946\n“Benighted”\nLUX RADIO THEATRE (SPRINGBOK, JOHANNESBURG)\n[Monday—8:00-9:00 PM]\nMay 1, 1950\n“The Old Dark House”",
  "sources": "",
  "gallery": "",
  "images": []
}