Dead Of Night (1945)

An architect (Mervyn Johns) is invited to a country house where his host (Roland Culver) wants to consult him on renovations. But the architect is disturbed when he meets the other guests because he has dreamed of them although he's never met them and of this house which he has never seen before. One of the earliest examples of omnibus (or portmanteau if you prefer) horror films. The architect's visit is the framing story and the individual stories contain: 1) a racing car driver (Anthony Baird) has premonitions of his own death. Directed by Basil Dearden. 2) a young girl (Sally Ann Howes) encounters a ghost at a Christmas party. Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. 3) a woman (Googie Withers) buys her fiance (Ralph Michael) a mirror that sees into the past. Directed by Robert Hamer. 4) a golfer (Basil Radford) is haunted by the ghost of his golfing partner (Naunton Wayne), who committed suicide. Directed by Charles Crichton. 5) a ventriloquist's (Michael Redgrave) dummy takes on a life of its own. Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. Not unusual, the stories vary in effectiveness but the ventriloquist story is a classic on its own. Anchored by a superb performance by Michael Redgrave, the sequence is genuinely creepy. The film has lost some of its power because its stories have been pilfered and used in the ensuing years by other films and TV shows (notably, TWILIGHT ZONE). With Frederick Valk, Elisabeth Welch, Mary Merrall, Miles Malleson and Peggy Bryan.