User Reviews

Crow Hollow is home to a somewhat dotty and eccentric family -that belonging to a Doctor who takes his newlywed bride to live there.The home is largely occupied by his Aunts ,an outwardly genial but really rather peculiar breed.One is a devoted spider collector ,having several large poisonous specimens around the house ,another busies herself with "good works"and one is a home maker with an obsessive interest in order and tidiness.

Soon the new bride begins to feel unwelcome -not surprising given she has a close encounter with a venomous spider and is fed poisoned drinks .It seems the old dears want rid of her and to see her replaced by a nubile young woman named Willow The acting is okay but the script is too talky and rambling and the direction is slack.Watchable as B movie on a wet afternoon but nothing special

Why did he even marry her? That's the question that soon comes to mind as you watch "Crow Hollow". After all, after a whirlwind courtship, Dr. Armour marries Ann and then barely shows her any attention at all and completely dismisses her concerns--and she has plenty! It's obvious this is no match made in heaven. So why did the Doctor marry her and exactly what is going on in this weird mansion filled with his strange aunts and that lousy maid? And, could someone really be attempting to kill her?

This is a pretty good mystery/suspense picture. Not a must-see by any stretch but exciting and with a nice ending. Worth seeing with nice performances all around and a well written story. And, one more reason why you should NEVER marry someone after knowing them only one week!!

By the way, at one point in the film Ann has a tarantula dropped on her. They then say she could have died and that the bug was poisonous. Well, tarantulas are mildly poisonous (like a bee sting) and you will not die from its bite. This is just bad writing and I've heard this repeated several times in films (such as "Dr. No").

I am 70 years of age and my family had our first t.v. (a "Murphy" 12" one channel BBC only) in 1954.I can still remember seeing Nora Nicholson playing her specialised role of a dotty old woman from those days in similar mystery plays.Esma Cannon another eccentric actress was an Australian who I first recognised playing a comic seamstress, "Lill" in the sit-com "The Rag Trade" in the early sixties.

The other reviewers have adequately commented on "Crow Hollow" (1952) and I see no reason to dispute their comments nor the official IMDb.com. rating which I would describe as adequate.The screen play writer & director very properly held back the solution of the mystery of who murdered the character maid "Willow" until the last reel; and why our dark brunette, newly married heroine's life had been previously threatened.Yes I too thought it reasonably well acted and I stayed the course to award it an rating of 6/10.

It's pretty slow much of the time, but this is a decent mystery story that has enough atmosphere and suspense to hold your interest. The story starts with a young bride coming to live with her husband at "Crow Hollow", which is dominated by his three aunts, none of whom are ideal in-laws. Gradually she realizes that her situation is not just unpleasant, but hazardous. It has quite a low-budget look to it, but the characters are interesting enough, and one detail that is done well is the presence of the many crows on the family property, whose constant racket parallels the anxiety building up inside the main characters. It might have been better if the first part had moved much more quickly, because they spent a lot more time setting up everything than they did with the actual mystery. But for a low-budget mystery, it's not bad at all.

Based on the 1950 novel by Dorothy Eden. A newly wed, young couple move into the husband's large family home, populated by his three dotty aunties and a mysterious maid. Before long the young bride is fearing for her life. Some reviews complain of it being slow but I certainly did not find that to be the case. For a start it's only 70 minutes long, but I found the characters all interesting & well acted. Plenty of atmosphere & some good scenes of suspense. Crow Hollow is my sort of house!

Not exactly good, but the photography by Robert LaPresle helps compensate for the cheap sets while papering over the cracks in Michael McCarthy's wildly inconsistent direction of this adaptation of Dorothy Eden's 1950 Gothic novel populated largely by women, in what resembles a very low budget rehash of 'The Three Weird Sisters' (1948), with Natasha Parry in the role played by Nova Pilbeam in the original.

Both are lured from London to an old dark house in the middle of nowhere occupied by three wacky old aunts; including Esma Cannon as an expert on spiders!

New wife comes to live at an old house called Crow Hollow.Among the residents is dotty scientist Esma Cannon,who has a collection of nasty insects and deadly toadstools which are used on the new wife in attempts to kill her.The corpse tally mounts with Donald Houston poo pooing that any of his family have homicidal tendancies,but of course he is wrong.

As a suspense film, I thought CROW HOLLOW was a bit lacking. This is a slow, meandering type film that has a good location in a gloomy country house populated by eccentric sisters. The acting is hard to fault and certainly the cast members give solid performances if not outstanding. I would have to lay the blame at the door of screenwriter Vivian Milroy, who didn't seem to have much experience of the mystery genre. The resultant film is plodding although not without merit.

Natasha Parry plays the protagonist role in this film. It's a typical part that has a little of REBECCA about it; a new bride moving into an ancestral home where she may or may not be going out of her mind. Parry is a fine choice for lead, she's lovely, fragile, and determined, all in the same breath. As her husband, Donald Houston is less interesting - I've never warmed to him - but there are good roles in support for the fine Melissa Stribling (DRACULA) as the friend and confidant and the delightful Esma Cannon (CARRY ON CRUISING) as the eccentric aunt.

CROW HOLLOW does well with a handful of shock sequences, one of which involving a tarantula that was later borrowed by Hammer for their adaptation of HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. However, the mystery aspects of the storyline feel dragged out and I found the ending to be more than a little unbelievable. It's watchable enough, but in a genre crowded with similar movies, CROW HOLLOW doesn't really stand out.

Gothic thrillers usually see a young woman marry a man and move to a spooky old house where she begins to fear he may kill her. Many novels - from Mary Roberts Rinehart to early Susan Howatch and beyond - revolve around such portents, and Hitchcock made use of it too in Suspicion. It seems to happen also in this 1952 film in which newlyweds Ann and her doctor husband Robert move onto his family estate. However, the twist is that the danger does not stem from the new husband but, it seems, from the three eccentric old aunts who live with them.

There's Aunt Judith, a bespectacled entomologist; the doting Aunt Opal and the tall and severe Aunt Hester. All the aunts seem to adore their nephew and they are friendly enough to Ann, but she senses something is wrong. Robert's dying mother had anxiously warned her not to go to Crow Hollow and she feels lonely and listless there while Robert is at his surgery in the village. The crows have returned to roost for the first time in decades, and legend has it that they foretell tragedy. Ann is also puzzled by the way in which her husband's aunts indulge their insolent maid, Willow, and even catches the girl trying on her clothes. Things get stranger still when Ann suffers a series of accidents This is one of the best B-movies I've seen yet. It may be rather languid - particularly for the first few minutes - but it's one of those films in which the atmosphere takes precedent over plot. The aunts are suitably creepy, despite being polite, and we appreciate Ann's trepidation as she is left alone with them.

Played by actress Natasha Parry - whose career would be defined by her marriage to film director Peter Brook and the parts he gave her - Ann is a likable, generous woman who is already in an unsettling situation before the danger starts. It does so about twenty five minutes in, and it is Parry's engaging performance which holds the film until then. Husband Robert is a bit of a wet blanket who frustratingly - but, by the conventions of the genre, inevitably - dismisses his wife's concerns.The film is only marred by its rushed ending and I was able to conjure a couple of better scenarios myself as, I think, would many others. Nevertheless, it's well worth an hour and ten minutes of your time and - like so many excellent old films - is available on YouTube.

Crow Hollow is very much a B movie version of Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca.

Dr Robert Armour (Donald Houston) has a whirlwind romance with Anne (Natasha Parry) and they quickly marry.

Dr Robert lives in a Gothic mansion with his three elderly and eccentric aunts. It's the price that came with his inheritance.

Only Anne is warned by a dying woman as to not live there. The place is named Crow Hollow as it used to swarm with crows. They have returned and it signifies a bad omen.

Almost immediately Anne feels uncomfortable around the house while Dr Robert practices his medicine. She feels unwelcome especially by the insolent maid Willow.

Soon bad luck is infects Anne like someone is trying to kill her. Maybe one of the aunt's is sinister or it really is just an accident.

The movie never rises above its B movie roots. It is all very clipped and sedate. The maid is spiky and eventually her origins are explored. At least as a mystery it has a good pay off.

You have to hand it to British audiences and producers in the 40's, 50's and 60's, they loved their murder mysteries, some were terrible, some iconic, fortunately for a whodunnit addict like myself there are still so many gems to discover.

Today I found Crow Hollow, and it is partly what you'd expect from a 1950's British mystery, The House is creaky, the characters are eccentric, everyone is in the exact place you'd expect them to be for the time, with the exception of Esma Cannon, Aunt Judith, who's a spider loving crazy Aunt, an actress I've always adored in comedy, she's fun to watch as always.

It's generally well acted, engaging, and certainly an entertaining watch. I wouldn't call it a classic, but I really enjoyed, 8/10

Nice time filler won't set your world alight but perfectly entertaining.what caught my eye was Patricia Owens sexy underwear scene,this wouldn't have been out of place in a sixties photo shoot and it made me realise plenty was going on in the 50s to match the swinging sixties.

Talky but well acted English murder mystery that takes place in a large old country estate house. There is some suspense here but it's slow moving. Natasha Parry, who portrays the sweet & innocent new bride, is beautiful & also is a good actress, which is a bonus! Notable for its almost all-female cast. While I watched this film, I thought it was made 1940-1945 (even the hair styles convey this period), so I would have to call it somewhat old fashioned even for its time. Enjoyable, nonetheless.

Doctor Donald Houston marries Natasha Parry and brings her back to the family house, Crow's Hollow, to lve with his three aunts. Everyone seems very sweet at first, and then things start happening. Is someone trying to kill her? If so, why?

It's an interesting variation on REBECCA, with the aunts all sounding like Billie Burke being veddy proper and English. Miss Parry seems like a whiny little snip at first. as she takes an instant dislike to the place while patently trying to make an effort to be accommodating, making her certainty about being the target for murder seem a bit less likely. I found Patricia Owens as the maid to be a breath of fresh air; even though she is clearly meant to be seen as a threat, one grows tired of usual servant roles, either Jeeves-like or invisible. She handles it just right.

The cast alone makes this Gothic thriller well worth seeing. The great, and very beautiful actor Natasha Parry leads as a woman under threat in a house dominated by three elderly women. There is nothing very original in the dark atmosphere of the plot, but due to the superior acting it works superbly well. The direction is faultless and so is the crisp black and white photography. Donald Houston plays her doctor husband, but it is the women who give their best, and I would have given it a full ten if Houston had been given more strength in his role as he was in my opinion a fine actor. Esma Cannon stands out as a ' collector ' of insects, and one scene is to be looked away from if anyone is afraid of spiders. Melissa Stribling in apparently her first role makes an impression, and in the 1958 remake of ' Dracula ' she shows just how fine she was and again in the Gothic genre that the British do so well. It is in all an enjoyable film that is neither too long or too short, and despite the few inevitable old fashioned parts in the plot it does not come across as old fashioned at all. To sum up; the chemistry between Houston and Parry works well as it did in another film where they were leads, ' Dance Hall ' an underrated Ealing film.

This was made in the day when men were rational and women were either hysterical or dotty. For example, the part of Doctor Robert Amour played by Donald Houston is portrayed as the rational, sane and logical man, against his wife, the irrational hysterical, weak woman. Similarly the doctor's aunts are portrayed as dotty eccentrics with unusual hobbies.

Of course these are women's stereotypes, which through the medium of cinema helped to shape attitudes toward women in the public's mind. This is the power of cinema.

In the end though the film illustrates that the doctor's wife was indeed perfectly rational and sane, with a lot of guts in a dangerous situation. Everything turns out...... well let's not spoil it.

Overall a nice mystery film with a fabulous old house feel. It's full of suspense albeit played through the idea of women stereotypes. Nevertheless it's worth a look for fans of mystery and suspense.

In CROW HOLLOW, a newlywed couple named Anne and Robert (Natasha Parry and Donald Houston), move into the house of the title, in spite of warnings against doing so. Upon their arrival, Robert introduces Anne to his three Aunts, and their companion, Willow (Patricia Owens). The aunts, though eccentric, seem quite pleasant, while Willow is a bit cold. Anne soon feels unwelcome in her own home.

It's not long before a series of "accidental" events occur, causing Anne to fear for her own safety. As the story unfolds, tragedy and death take place. All the while, the crows are amassing outside.

CROW HOLLOW is a well-made mystery with some thrills along the way.

Deserves to be rediscovered...