The Ghosts of Berkeley Square – 1947 | 85mins | Comedy | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Delightfully whimsical supernatural comedy based on the novel No Nightingales by Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon. Vernon Sewell’s direction is confident and an accomplished cast of British character actors go through their paces with aplomb.

During an inter-terrestrial television broadcast in the afterlife, a pair of disgraced 18th century soldiers, Col. Kelsoe and Gen. Burlap (Robert Morley and Felix Aylmer), narrate the story of how they came to be condemned to haunt a Mayfair mansion. Their scheme was to prevent war by setting a trap for a military commander and keep him prisoner until the crisis passes, but instead they kill themselves whilst testing the efficiency of their contraption. Now ghosts, their sentence will be deemed complete only when a reigning monarch has visited the house.

The two fall out almost immediately and spend the first sixty-six years not talking to each other. Over the next two centuries the ghosts find themselves sharing the house with a range of colourful characters but nonetheless fail to lure a reigning monarch. All seems lost until the house is bombed during WWI, and Queen Mary plans to visit sites which have been blighted by the war.