The curious incident of the dog in the painting.

March 23, 2009 8:13 PM

What scary black-and-white movie, involving bleeding portraits and howling black dogs, did I see back in the '60s?

This has been driving me crazy for years, and and even my biggest movie geek friends have been unable to come up with any possibilities. I saw this movie on TV in the early sixties, when I was five or so. I think it was a showing of an old film on some kind of horror theater or something. The movie in question was in black-and-white and took place, as I recall, in a big dark scary English house --you know, the kind with massive wood paneled walls and giant staircases. The look and feel of it makes me think that it was a 1940s film. I seem to remember British accents, or at least faux British accents.

The scene I remember most clearly involves a portrait that shows a seated man with a large, black dog on each side of him. The dogs look like big black Great Danes. At one point, someone throws a dart or a knife at the portrait, and it bleeds. At another time, the dog in the portrait begins to howl, scaring the hell out of a man who is looking at it.

If anyone could shed some light on this, it would make me very happy. I have Googled it to the nth degree and have never come up with anything.

Oh, and I am pretty sure that it's not "The Hound of the Baskervilles".

posted by OolooKitty to media & arts (12 comments total)

Boy, it sure sounds like Manos, The Hands of Fate based on the portrait description. But the type of house isn't right.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 8:43 PM on March 23

A clip.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 8:45 PM on March 23

I don't know, but Find That Horror Film may be able to help you if Metafilter cannot.

Sample question:

There is a shot of an isolated road out in the wilderness at night. Suddenly, a truck drives up and stops in the middle of the road. A few moments later, the truck slowly transforms into a house. The narrator says, "A truck, that turns into a house," as the truck begins to transform into the house. Once the transformation is complete, the full moon rises and the howling of wolves is heard.
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:49 PM on March 23

Yeah, definitely not MANOS, although I enjoyed the clip! And that portrait is similar, though the one in the movie I remember is more of a formal English-type family portrait.

And Find That Horror Film is great, I'll try that, thanks. Just browsing through looking at titles, I found myself having fond memories of "Crowhaven Farm" and "Bad Ronald". Man, I miss the ABC Tuesday Movie of the Week.
posted by OolooKitty at 10:51 PM on March 23

Oh boy, if it's ...And Now the Screaming Starts, I'll be tickled. I caught this movie in the middle of the night about a year ago and it was so goofy... It's from '73, though, so maybe too late?
posted by penchant at 7:53 AM on March 24

Yeah, "And Now the Screaming Starts" is too late. I'm pretty sure I'm talking pre-1964 here. That movie looks hilariously awesome, however, and I think I must see it now. So thanks!
posted by OolooKitty at 5:55 PM on March 24

Does this sound right? It's from a review of "Twice Told Tales" from 1963:

Finally we have "The House of the Seven Gables," which had already been filmed several times at feature length, including once in 1940 with Vincent Price playing a completely different role. Here Vinnie gets to play the heavy - lecherous, greedy, abusive Gerald Pyncheon, who is driven back to his ancestral home after an eighteen-year absence because of gambling debts. He drags his lovely wife Alice (Beverly Garland) along and is confronted with hostility by his bitter sister Hannah (Jacqueline de Wit). Legend has it that there's a hidden vault somewhere on the premises containing millions, which no one has been able to find. The trouble is that the Pyncheon men all have a strange habit of dying in the same exact chair near a bleeding portrait. Hmmm... Richard Denning shows up as descendant of the Maulle family, who have a long-standing feud with the Pyncheon's over some land, and possibly more. Definitely the least successful of these tales, which is a shame because I love both Price and Garland to pieces and was looking forward to seeing them on-screen together. This tries to cram way too much plot into 40 minutes and becomes both dull and ponderous, though it does pick up a bit at the end with a surprising pick-axe to the head murder, a silly reanimated skeleton hand and a model of the home crumbling to the ground.
posted by Evangeline at 9:02 PM on March 24

I got really excited about the "Twice Told Tales" and went and looked at clips from it... but no, that's not it. I distinctly remember the portrait being of a seated man with a dog at each side, and this portrait looks quite different.

Thanks, though!!! That synopsis certainly does make it sound like the right movie. I got very excited until I saw the painting and went, oh, no, that's not it.
posted by OolooKitty at 3:08 PM on March 26

After reading my comment I realized I'd made a mistake. The review I quoted is from the version of "The House of the Seven Gables" in the film "Twice Told Tales" released in 1963, but "The House of the Seven Gables" was first filmed in 1940. I couldn't find a review of the 1940 movie that mentioned the portrait, but since it was mentioned in the 1963 version, I imagined it was in the original as well. Maybe in the original there were dogs in the portrait.
posted by Evangeline at 1:02 PM on March 27

Oh, cool. I will check out the original "House" and see if that might be it.
posted by OolooKitty at 6:00 PM on March 27

If you find anything, please let me know! I couldn't find any photos from the original, other than the movie poster.
posted by Evangeline at 5:09 AM on March 29

I will! Thanks.
posted by OolooKitty at 9:18 PM on March 31