Classic Nick Wed. – Mr. Blunden Article

I found this article about “The Amazing Mr. Blunden” a while back but I’m sorry I do not have the link to the original article.

Article - The Amazing Mr. Blunden

People usually think of ghosts as wicked and evil who cause nothing but distress and trouble, but “sometimes ghosts are people who come back seeking help,” says THE AMAZING MR. BLUNDEN, star of the Hemdale film of the same name.

          Once upon two times, there were two sets of brothers and sisters. Jamie and Lucy Allen lived in 1918. Sarah and Georgie Latimer lived exactly one hundred years earlier in 1818. And died in 1818. Or did they? Their gravestones say so…except their gravestones have now disappeared!

          This is the haunting story of how 100 years of time is traveled by two children to save Sarah and Georgie from a terrible death in a burning house. This is a film adapted from Antonia Barber’s story “the Ghosts”, about the friendliest, saddest and youngest ghosts ever to call upon love and assistance from the ‘future’.

Jamie (Garry Miller) and Lucy’s (Lynne Frederick) father had been killed in the Great War. With money being very scarce the children faced a bleak Christmas in their dark and dingy London flat – that is until the Amazing Mr. Blunden (Laurence Naismith) cam to call!

          Mr. Blunden is indeed an amazing character. A warm, kindly old man, rather like someone out of a Charles Dickens novel, he is nevertheless very strange! His eyes are transparent; his shoes never get wet and no snow falls on his coat. But everything makes sense because, although he doesn’t say so, Mr. Blunden is a ghost.

          However, the old man is always hinting about his identity, like telling the children never to be frightened of ghosts. He quickly arranges a job for the children’s mother (Dorothy Alison) as caretaker of Langley Park, an empty and half-burned-down mansion deep in the country. It is a place with a long history of ghosts and one that the locals keep well away from.

          Be Easter 1918 the Allens have moved in and it isn’t long before Jamie and Lucy begin to hear voices and meet two ghostly orphans. Sarah (Rosalyn Landor) and Georgie (Marc Granger). The ghosts need immediate help from two brave, calm, levelheaded people, and of course they Jamie and Lucy fit the bill.

          With the help of their very own secret potion which moves them back a century through time, Jamie and Lucy assist Sarah and Georgie on escaping the clutches of their wicked guardian. Uncle Bertie (James Villiers), his good-for-nothing wife, Bella (Madeline Smith) and her vicious parents, Mr. & Mrs. Wickens (David Lodge and Diana Dors). You see, if the children should die, Uncle Bertie will inherit ₤30,000 – an even more considerable sum in those days. So Mr. Wickens sets the house alight.

          The film brilliantly shows how Jamie, Lucy and the Amazing Mr. Blunden – all ghosts now – are able to fight against the restrictions of time, re-write history and save Sarah and Georgie.

          Finally, after their many hair raising ordeals, back in 1918 the ‘dead’ children’s graves vanish, the Allen family have Langley Park to themselves for ever and everyone takes a well deserved bow – the good and the bad. A brilliantly ghostly story of time and time past…as amazing as Mr. Blunden himself!