The Ghost

Lo spettro

Italy

1963

97 Min

Color

1.85:1

Italian

Currently 3.2/5 Stars.
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CAST Barbara Steele, Peter Baldwin, Elio Jotta, Harriet Medin, Umberto Raho, Carol Bennet, Carol Kechler

The infamous Dr. Hitchcock performs seances and black magic rituals to ease the pain of a debilitating illness. Overwhelmed by sadistic demands his beautiful young wife concocts a plan to murder the doctor and inherit his riches. The ghastly voice of the murdered professor echoes through the haunted mansion when his ghost returns seeking vengeance. The wife’s terror and the spirit’s bloodlust lead to a horrific confrontation and their ultimate doom. The Ghost (originally released in Italy as Lo spettro) is the second film by Riccardo Freda to detail the gruesome crimes of Dr. Hitchcock. —amazon

Director

Riccardo Freda

Freda was born in Alexandria Egypt of Italian parents. Educated in Milan, he became a sculptor, then a newspaper art critic, and then began a career in film in 1937 in the areas of screenwriting and production supervisor. He moved to film direction in 1942, beginning a career that lasted some forty years. Resisting the strong neo-realism trend in post-war Italy, Freda (with Vittorio Cottafavi) continued to make films in the historico-spectacular style, at which he developed a considerable mastery. He was a pioneer in Italy of horror-fantasy films, especially with I Vampiri and L’orrible segreto del dottor Hitchcock. From there he went to melodrama and spy films, and even made one western. Strong on visual style, Freda’s films had popular appeal, and were usually commercial successes. Several are French or other European co-productions. Freda used a number of aliases during his career, including (as director) Riccardo Freda Riccardo Freda and Riccardo Freda and (as screenwriter) Riccardo… read more