MISS MORRISON'S GHOSTS

UK, 1981, 100 minutes, Colour.
Wendy Hiller, Hannah Gordon, Bosco Hogan, Vivienne Pickles.
Directed by John Bruce.

Miss Morrison’s Ghosts is a story about two women who claim that they were in a time warp – where they visited characters in the past including Marie Antoinette as they were walking through the palace in Versailles. The film focuses on their presentation of their experiences to a psychic society in England and the consequences where they are mocked and their livelihoods threatened.

The film is interesting in its presentation of the paranormal. Sceptics can also enjoy the drama. The film gains its strength from the performances of Wendy Hiller as Miss Morrison and Hannah Gordon as Miss Lamont.

1. An entertaining telemovie? English-style drama? Period?

2. British style: re-creation of period, atmosphere, style? Characterisation? The emphasis on elegant language? Music?

3. The screenplay and expectations: Oxford, St. Gilberts? The move to Versailles? The focus on the two women? Psychic experiences? The bonds between the women and their experiences? The enquiries and testing? Issues of 1904? Death?

4. The importance of the background: Oxford locations, the visual impact of Versailles and its style, the old world, gowns and clothes, cars and phones? The transition? Women, politics, education, science, scientific research, the occult and the psychic, religion? An '80s view of the early 20th century - retrospect and critique?

5. The portrait of Miss Morrison: as a woman, as a daughter? Her father? Severity, education, proving herself? The senior common-room? Age, decisions? The employing of Miss Lamont, testing her? The journey to Versailles, experience, identification? Writing, drawing? The isolation, ignoring Frances? Her reaction to the changes? To Oliver? Holding on, clinging? Discovering Frances and being needed? The interrogations, publication? The case, the Lord Chancellor? Stances? Her supporting Frances? Death? Wendy Hiller's performance? articulate, moods, sermon? French, her demands? Vulnerable? Change?

6. Miss Lamont and her arrival, the question of being Vice Principal, her stance, ambition? Educational backwater? Religion? Oliver and her relationship, the lyrical sequences? Help and rejection? The trip to Versailles the relationship with Miss Morrison, what she saw and experienced, her pampering Miss Morrison? Writing the accounts. the research? Power struggles, new ideas, the staff of the school? Relating to Oliver and the end of the relationship? Miss Morrison's ups and downs? The conduct of the case. Lord Chancellor? Resignation? The importance of the sermon? The ending and the rebuke? Her achievement and hopes of what she would achieve before 40? The pathos of her death?

7. Oliver as a pleasant man, the meetings, love, lyrical interludes, Versailles? His attitude towards Frances' experience?

8. The sketch of the staff, the bursar, diplomacy with the bursar, upsets?

9. The psychic theme: Dr. Hadley? A woman? Other investigators, the rejection, the review, the high court? Withdrawing from the case? Condolences?

10. The sketch of the Lord Chancellor ? pleasant, hard, political implications?

11. The actual experience and memory of it at Versailles? The relationship between the 18th. and the 20th. centuries? The research? The uncanny impact for the audience - that the audience saw what Miss Lamont saw? The research, the discussion?

12. Interesting themes and emotional response: Oxford, education, causes, women, ghosts and the supernatural?