The Haunted Bedroom

1919 film

May 25, 1919 (1919-05-25)

Running time

5 reelsCountryUnited StatesLanguageSilent (English intertitles)

The Haunted Bedroom is a lost^[1] 1919 American silent drama film directed by Fred Niblo^[2] and starring Enid Bennett and Dorcas Matthews.^[3] The film was also distributed under the title The Ghost of Whispering Oaks.^[4]

Plot

As described in a film magazine,^[5] New York reporter Betsy Thorne (Bennett) travels to the railroad station in a Southern state to investigate a missing man where she overhears a conversation between the sheriff and an imported detective that reporters are barred from the house and grounds where the mystery has taken place. By good fortune she comes across a maid sent to the house from Richmond, and so frightens her that she gains a chance to act in her place. She finds an extraordinary set of affairs at the house, and during the first night is nearly terrified out of her senses when, hiding in the chapel, she sees a ghostly figure come from the grand organ. The house is roused by her screams as she flees the room, and she is forbidden from going back there by the sister of the missing man. During the following night she is locked in her room during a thunderstorm, and while escaping through a window sees the ghostly figure again in the family graveyard. She enlists the aid of an old black man and, both badly scared, make an investigation which starts from a particular chord played at the grand organ. They find that certain keys cause a secret door in the organ to open, revealing a secret passage to a family tomb. There she discovers two expert crooks and solves a mystery that has baffled the detectives, laying bare the scheme to extort a young man accused of the crime whom she has become deeply interested.

Cast

Enid Bennett as Betsy Thorne
Dorcas Matthews as Dolores Arnold
Jack Nelson as Daniel Arnold
Lloyd Hughes as Roland Dunwoody
William Conklin as Dr. James Dunwoody
Harry Archer as John Wells
Otto Hoffman as Managing Editor
Joe Anthony as Uncle Moseby Adams

References

^ The Library of Congress/FIAF American Silent Feature Film Survival Catalog: The Haunted Bedroom
^ Janiss Garza (2010). "New York Times: The Haunted Bedroom". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Baseline & All Movie Guide. Archived from the original on October 17, 2010. Retrieved June 7, 2008.
^ Workman, Christopher; Howarth, Troy (2016). "Tome of Terror: Horror Films of the Silent Era". Midnight Marquee Press. p. 206.ISBN 978-1936168-68-2.
^ Workman, Christopher; Howarth, Troy (2016). "Tome of Terror: Horror Films of the Silent Era". Midnight Marquee Press. p. 211.ISBN 978-1936168-68-2.
^ Harrison, Louis Reeves (June 14, 1919). "Reviews and Advertising Aids: The Haunted Bedroom". Moving Picture World. 40 (11). New York City: Chalmers Publishing Company: 1689. Retrieved September 22, 2014.