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(e)Book – Love and friendship

  (e) Book –  Love and friendship Full title :  Love and friendship and other early works Author : Jane Austen Score : /10 Year : 1790 (original) ; 2012 (this edition) Publisher : Duke Classics   ISBN  978-1-62012-155-9  // 9781620121559  (ebook)  Pages :  Language: English Jane Austen is best known for her 6 novels, which all have been adapted into tv movies - but after having read Virginia Woolf's short fiction in chronological order, I decided to apply the same for Austen's publications, to better appreciate her growth and evolution in narrative style. So, before reading her novels which were released from 1811 to 1817, in the following order :  Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma,  Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, I decided to go back to her teenage years, reading Love and Friendships, and other early works.

Movie – The Uninvited (1944)




Movie – The Uninvited 

Score : 6.5/10 
Year : 1944
Director:  Lewis Allen
Cinematography: Charles Lang
Music: Victor Young
Country: USA
Language: English 
Duration: 1h39
Writers: Dorothy Macardle (novel : Uneasy freehold )
Dodie Smith & Frank Partos (screenplay)
Full cast (IMDB)

1937, During their vacation in Cornwall, Roderick Fitzgerald and his sister Pamela purchase a Gothic mansion despite rumours of paranormal activity. 

The Uninvited is an early movie about haunted houses, and as such, depicts a séance, and many aspects that would become tropes of the genre, but as it is an early movie on the topic, it's a must-see in regards to setting them in the first place. 


Despite this, the movie does offer unusual resolutions and manages to surprise - just not about the doe-eyed woman with the glowing light on her face as the romantic love interest for the protagonist. This romance is a bit too fast, in my opinion. 

Some dialogues/situations are unsettling and annoying, but have to be taken into their social - and legal - context. Such as two adult unmarried siblings wanting to share a home, or domineering parental figure treating a 20 year old woman as a child - because at the time, adulthood started at 21. 

The cinematography is rather good, especially for its period - I especially loved a scene with a flower. 

Young's music is sometimes overly sentimental and doesn't ever truly shine, but this isn't much different to other movies of the period. 

Edith Head's costuming, on the other hand, is beautiful.

The uninvited entertains. It may not shine or be the best in anything, but it gets the job done in telling a story, albeit with some clichés and dwells a bit much on a character's obsessiveness about someone's death which occurred almost 2 decades prior. 
There doesn't seem to be any fur, and apart for an apple, no food either. 
Characters' nonchalant approach to their disappeared dog is annoying, but at least, the story doesn't focus on a trope of dead animals at all. 

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