Return to Glennascaul (1951)

I seldom comment on short films but I am prepared to do so for this Orson Welles curiosity.  Whilst in Ireland making his version of "Othello" which with stopping and starting took him four years (!), Welles agreed to appear in this short feature which was produced by two of his Shakespearian colleagues.  He appears as himself in the bookends of this tale as a driver on a dark and stormy night giving a lift to a motorist whose car has broken down.  The man procedes to tell him about another dark and stormy night when he too had given a ride to two stranded women.  As you may have twigged, this is a ghost story; Glennascaul means valley of the shadows and is the name of the house where he took his passengers and where he had a drink.  When he returned to retrieve his cigarette case, he found the premises uninhabited and derelict, but the case was on the mantle where he left it.  It's a slight and spooky story, well acted and nicely photographed, but it would probably no longer be known were it not for Welles' brief and slightly campy presence.  It was apparently Oscar-nominated as best short feature, but frankly it may well have been a pretty thin year.