The Halfway House

The Halfway House
British quad poster
Directed byBasil Dearden
Written byAngus MacPhail
Diana Morgan
Roland Pertwee (script contributor)
T.E.B. Clarke (script contributor)
Based onplay The Peaceful Inn by Dennis Ogden
Produced byMichael Balcon
StarringMervyn Johns
Glynis Johns
Tom Walls
Françoise Rosay
CinematographyWilkie Cooper
Edited byCharles Hasse
Music byLord Berners
Color processBlack and white
Production
company
Distributed byABPC (UK)
Release dates
  • 14 April 1944 (1944-04-14) (London)
  • 5 June 1944 (1944-06-05) (UK [1] film date)
  • 12 August 1945 (1945-08-12) (New York City)
Running time
95 minutes[2]
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

The Halfway House is a 1944 British drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Mervyn Johns, his daughter Glynis Johns, Tom Walls and Françoise Rosay.[3] The film tells the story of ten people who are drawn to stay in an old Welsh countryside inn. Location scenes were shot at Barlynch Priory on the Devon/Somerset border.[3]

The film was "suggested by" the 1940 three act play The Peaceful Inn by Denis Ogden set in Dartmoor that made no mention of the war.[4] A November 1957 BBC television film was made of The Peaceful Inn.[5]

BFI Screenonline writes, "The high-quality personnel involved and the tight, professional scripting mark the film out as one of the earliest templates of what would become the traditional Ealing style."[6].

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Regal was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ BBFC: The Halfway House (1944) Accessed 6 September 2015
  3. ^ a b "The Halfway House". BFI. Archived from the original on 13 July 2012.
  4. ^ "The Peaceful Inn".
  5. ^ "The Peaceful Inn · British Universities Film & Video Council".
  6. ^ "BFI Screenonline: Halfway House, The (1944)".