Rent The Queen of Spades (1949)

Justifiable rating as a ghostly classic - The Queen of Spades review by CD

I was a little nervous about whether a 1949 film would stand the test of time. It does, mainly due to a good plot and excellent characters. There are some good spooky moments and the camera work is excellent creating a very atmospheric and enjoyable film that keeps its momentum to the end.

Fashionably Late - The Queen of Spades review by griggs

The ghost story turns up fashionably late. Very fashionably. From early on you can tell something spooky is on the guest list, and then you spend most of the evening watching the door.

To be fair, The Queen of Spades tips its hand. An old Countess holds the secret to winning at cards, and a hard-up army officer wants it badly enough to flirt with damnation. The film puts the secret in play, then shuffles. And shuffles.

When the ghost finally pulls up a chair, well into the last act, a few of those early hints pay out. The trouble is that by then I was mostly watching the clock.

It’s going back in the deck. Still, I stayed at the table until the last card turned.

A ghost story with a very full social calendar.

Terrific, atmospheric, good acting - The Queen of Spades review by MR

I loved this. The acting is good, Anton Walbrook and Edith Evans especially - although the old fashioned accents do make the words hard to catch.
The story is a lovely gothic supernatural one, and the various atmospheres created are excellently done - this is where the 'extra' features give lots of interesting information about the small studio space, how the sound effects were achieved, etc. So they are therefore worth watching too, although repetitive -the detailed lecture about the film is fine, but then you get the interview with Thorold Dickinson, which makes it repetitive, as the lecturer obviously got a lot of his information from it.
Out of interest, I have a dvd of a terrric Glyndebourne production of Tchaikovsky's opera, and the director clearly got a lot of his ideas from this film, especially the confrontation between the officer and the countess, and the drinking den scenes. So if you know that it's even more interesting.