What is Dreamt and What is Coming - WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU (1968)

"There are more things in philosophy than are dreamt of in the Heaven and Earth.

There are more things in the Heaven and Earth that are dreamt of in your philosophy."

While Americans tend to think that Christmas is owned and operated by the US of A, England has a great many Christmas traditions all its own, very few of which have made it across the Atlantic.  Among them is the Christmas cracker, a tube pulled at each end which makes a loud bang and holds small toys and candy inside, as well as a terrible joke.  Another, and one I wish we would adopt on these shores, is the telling of ghost stories on Christmas Eve.  The Victorian era and the early 20th century was a golden age of the old-school ghost story, with British authors such as J. Sheridan le Fanu, Oliver Onions* and the Benson siblings reigning supreme, as well figures like Ambrose Bierce, Robert Chambers and H. P. Lovecraft on our side of the pond.  Arguably the most revered British ghost story writer was M. R. James, an antiquarian and Medieval scholar who wrote stories as a sideline and as a way to explore the dark possibilities of his antiquarian interests, many of them written specifically to be read aloud at Christmas Eve.  A favorite of British filmmakers, a number of his stories were adapted for television by the BBC, largely as part of a series called A Ghost Story for Christmas which adapted a different story annually from 1971 to 1978.  I've seen one of these, A Warning to the Curious, and it's a damn creepy horror experience that excels far beyond its time constraints and budgetary limitations.  The main precursor to this series is the teleplay I'm talking about today, Whistle and I'll Come to You, based on James's "Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You My Lad".  Lasting barely more than 40 minutes, Whistle knocked me on my ass, an unnervingly effective ghost yarn best approached with little foreknowledge and an acute lack of lighting in the room, and considering that it was broadcast on Christmas Eve I can only assume all of England was gripped by an endless, sleepless night.

A man walks on a windswept beach towards the camera as a narrator tells us of M. R. James and the story in question, pitched as his darkest and promising a tale of hubris and internal destruction.  The man is Professor Parkin of Cambridge (played by the veteran character actor Michael Hordern), a simultaneously fastidious and out-of-sorts man who has come to stay at a seaside hotel during the off-season. Bumbling in the face of a largely empty resort, Parkin eats his breakfast loudly on his first morning and goes for a seaside stroll, eventually reaching an old graveyard.  Approaching a grave on a cliffside he sees a bone sticking out of the cliff face, seemingly belonging to whoever was buried there hundreds of years ago, and puts it in his satchel, saying "Finders, Keepers".  That evening he inspects the bone to see it is actually a primitive flute which bears an inscription; he makes a rubbing of it and translates it to read "Who is this who is coming?"  He says "We shall blow it and see," and does just that.  A strange wind begins to howl, putting Parkin to bed in an uneasy state.  In conversation at breakfast the next morning he insists he doesn't believe in ghosts, raising the point to the man who brought the subject up that ghosts should be subject to the same scrutiny as any scientific enquiry and that there isn't a real consensus on what a ghost is anyways.  He thinks little of ghosts and the flute until bedtime, when he is once again dogged by the inscription, only to dream...dream of running on the shore, running from his own heartbeat, running for his life, running from something ancient, unreal, and hungry.  Only the next day knows if he will have to run for real.

If producer/adapter/director Jonathan Miller should be commended for anything at the start it's his ability to induce claustrophobia in the viewer.  Very little dialogue is spoken for quite a while at the start and the viewer is treated to the sounds of stuffy rooms and amplified human scrabblings, their sight forced into long diagonal framing.  Shot in pristine B&W, Whistle looks gorgeous and foreboding, its hotel nearly choking in its lack of customers and crushing in its insistence on making every microscopic noise Parkins makes overwhelmingly present.  This meets Hordern's performance as Parkin head on, as Hordern's turn here is one of the most hypnotically eccentric and precisely realized performances I've ever seen in a horror film.  Every little head turn, speech hiccup and emotional curl is beautifully embellished, painting a picture of congenial self-absorption specific to career scholars and strangely rare in horror cinema.  Whether by script or improvisation Parkin utters many subtle, yet baffling, phrase peculiarities, such as when he finds the flute and says "Give the dog a bone" to himself.  If all of this sounds funny to you, keep a grip on the arm of your chair, as Whistle makes sure the terror is both present and uniquely gripping.  Trust me when I say you'll never look at late-60's audio tape distortion the same way again.  What is so remarkable is just how memorable an uneasy an experience the 41-minute film is in spite of its short length and rather simple story, and when it comes down to it not much really happens - it's just that what happens is undeniably disturbing, and then that open ending...that ending...

Whatever you're doing this Christmas season, you've probably got a spare 41 minutes to check out this spare, creepy little gem.  I may visit the proper A Ghost Story for Christmas series in time (especially A Warning to the Curious), but this will more than suffice for the time being.  Forget whatever image you have in your head of a mild-mannered made-for-TV horror short and just let Whistle and I'll Come to You sweep you away.  That is, if you can handle things dreamt outside of your philosophy.

~PNK

*Yes, that's his real name.