Original subtitles

Jeremy, is it you?

Jeremy, why don't you speak?

Jeremy, in God's name, speak!

Don't be alarmed.

The woman who just screamed is perfectly quiet now, as sure as my name is Boris

Karloff. You see, she's been dead for nearly a hundred years.

Her bed is empty, and whatever it was that frightened her so seems to be gone.

Seems to be.

But I can tell you this much.

That bed won't be empty much longer, and other screams will soon be heard.

Whose?

Perhaps yours, or those who will join us here.

Mr. Rip Torn.

Miss Patricia Barry.

Mr. Richard Anderson.

And... Well, it seems the rest of our cast cannot be raised.

They're dead, you know.

But spend a night with us in the Purple Room, if you dare.

Let me assure you, my friends, this is a thriller.

In willing the house to you, dear brother, I am hopeful that you will fall

under the spell of it, as I did when first I saw it and knew I must possess

it.

Well, I'm sorry I'll have to disappoint him there. My only interest in that

property is to dispose of it as soon as possible for a profit. You haven't heard

the terms.

Should you decide, after one night under the roof of Black Oak, that you do not

choose to take up residence there. The estate will pass to our beloved cousin

Rachel Judson and her husband Oliver, who have been my guests, confidants, and

faithful companions during these years of my life at Black Oak, and who cherish

it as I do. Just a minute. Does that mean I can't sell the house?

After a period of one year's residence...

you will be free to dispose of the estate in any manner you see fit.

But I believe that by that time, only death would part you from it,

as it has finally parted me from Black Oak.

You recognize your brother's signature, of course.

Yes, but, um, I don't understand.

You say that I have to live in the house for one year before I can sell it,

right? Mm-hmm.

But you also say I have to decide if I will live in it after only one night.

Your brother felt that one night would be sufficient to make your decision.

He wanted you to feel as he felt about the place.

You see, he fell in love with Black Oak at first sight.

But some people are repelled by their first impressions of it.

Well, it'll take a lot to repel me. I happen to know that that property is in

the middle of an area to be developed by Moreland Enterprises.

I'll sit it out a year if I have to.

Then I take it you'll be leaving for Baton Rouge within a week or so.

I'll leave tonight. There's nothing to keep me here.

Well, do you like it, Duncan?

Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, cousin Rachel, but, uh, yes, I like it

very much.

Then it's all that you expected, eh?

Exactly.

I must admit that, uh, you two come as a pleasant surprise. I don't know what I

was expecting. Something out of Charles Adams, I guess.

Well,

we'll accept that as a compliment, but wherever did you get that impression?

Well, when, uh, Everett bought the house, he, uh... described it to me in a

letter, and then later he wrote me that you two were staying here, and I suppose

I simply extended the description of the house to include you.

Well, we're not quite that old.

I'll get the bags.

Unless, of course, you'll change your mind and... Oh, no, I'm here. I might as

well get it over with.

You make it sound as if you think it's going to be an ordeal.

Well, now, let's be honest, cousin Rachel. You know, those stories you were

telling me down from the station weren't exactly meant to reassure me. Oh, come

now, Duncan.

Well, look, all of that is part of the fun of having an old house. It's

history, it's secrets, all those ghosts. You inherit those with the house. I

know. I mean, of course, neither one of you would have any idea of attempting to

scare me out before the morning.

Well, now, why would we do a thing like that?

I just happen to have a nasty mind, and I can't help remembering that if I

decide not to stay here, that the place will belong to you.

You think it means that much to us?

Well, it'd mean that much to me to hold on to it. You know, this place is going

to be worth a lot of money in the next couple of years, as you both know.

If you'd given us a bit more notice, we would have had the electricity turned

on.

Uh-huh.

Oh, you don't believe us.

I suppose you think we arranged it this way to make things a little more

difficult for you. Well, Oliver, I'm certain I'd do the same thing if I were

in your position. Oh, my, you do have a nasty mind.

Why, thank you, Rachel.

I can explore this place in the morning.

All I need now is a room this way.

We close the house after Everett's death.

I'm afraid the only bed that's made up is in the purple room.

Of course, you wouldn't like that one. Oh, is that a challenge? The purple

room, by all means.

There's nothing that you have to prove here. It's very easy to change the

bedding from one room to the other.

Well, listen, I don't want to put you in any trouble, and I'm certain it'd be

much more difficult for you if I didn't stay in the purple room.

Here it is.

Welcome home after you

Oh

a

nice place to visit but

you wouldn't want to die here

Uh, will you hold that just a moment?

No, sure.

I still don't have any matches.

Well, perhaps you'd like to borrow my lighter. Oh, no, the candle will be fine

until I go to bed, and then, uh... Well, I, uh... I never smoke before breakfast,

and, uh, I never sleep with the lights on.

You mean you're actually going to sleep here?

Well, if you don't keep me awake.

Well, we told you, we can't spend the night.

Oh, yes, that's right. You did tell me that, didn't you?

Will you excuse me just a moment, please?

You know, they say that these old Victorian mansions are just riddled with

secret passageways, but in case anyone thinks of popping out of some panel

during the night, I'll welcome them with this.

Now, look, that's going entirely too far. Put that thing away.

Well, I think it's only fair that any ghost within sound of my voice should be

advised of my intention.

My good fellow, if what is haunting this house is something human...

You'll be doing a favor to everyone in the district if you put a few bullets in

it. If not... If not what, Oliver? If not, you've done everything you can to

announce your antagonism, your lack of sympathy... to them.

The outset, you've been smug and provocative.

I don't. I'm not afraid of dying if they're not. Would you please stop

waving that thing around? Oh, I'm sorry. I just didn't want you to be concerned

over me. And will you please tell any ghosts you happen to meet on the way

out?

Ghosts only appear to those who are fool enough to believe in them.

And those who are fool enough not to.

Any other words of comfort and parting?

at least lets all part as friends.

Let's have a drink.

I would love a drink. So would I.

We can drink to the success of the living over the dead.

Duncan. Oliver.

Cheers.

Uh, just a moment.

Uh,

if you don't mind, let's exchange glasses.

Do you think we were trying to drug you?

Well, I just can't help judging others by myself, and I'm sure if I were you

that, uh...

I slipped something in the drink to slow the reflexes and stimulate the

imagination.

Come on, Oliver.

Humor him.

So this is where it's happened, huh?

Nearly 100 years ago.

If you believe it, it started right in that bed.

What's your version, Oliver?

That was their bed.

Captain Jeremy Ransom and his wife Caroline, his bride of only seven days.

They were alone in the house, as people on a honeymoon prefer to be.

But in the middle of the night, Caroline awoke, hearing the sound of footsteps on

the floor below.

Caroline was terrified.

But Jeremy, hardened by years of war, didn't know the meaning of fear.

If a prowler had gotten in, he'd throw him out bodily.

He started for the door.

Caroline begged him not to leave her there alone.

So Jeremy stopped, and then he went to the mantel, and took down his pistol,

loaded it, and put it into her hands.

If the fellow should slip past and penetrate the bedroom, Jeremy told her

to shoot and shoot to kill.

Then he went out, out to the stairs.

He took no light to warn the prowler and started down the stairs slowly,

searching.

There in the bed, Caroline waited, clutching the gun.

She waited, waited, because she wanted a scream.

Instead, she hardly breathed. She heard nothing, nothing at all.

She just waited.

She began to pray.

And then she heard it.

The footsteps again, coming up the stairs.

But they weren't his footsteps, not her husband's, not Jeremy's.

They shuffled, dragged, groped, fumbled.

Coming closer.

Closer.

Reaching the door.

They started in.

She couldn't see who or what it was moving toward her out of the dark.

Her fingers tightened on the gun.

She cried out, Jeremy, is it you?

There was no answer.

So she fired point blank again and again at the shape. She heard a moan.

Then a fall.

And she lit the candle.

Then she began to scream.

And scream.

And scream.

Is that the punchline?

When the servants found them, Caroline was raving mad.

Jeremy was lying in a pool of blood at the foot of the bed, a knife buried in

his chest.

He had been stabbed by the prowler.

And then he forced his way up those stairs, step by step, unable to

speak, more dead than alive, to get help from Caroline.

Instead, his bride had shot him dead.

She never regained her sanity.

Well, it's no joke to lose a husband like that, especially one you like.

It's all in the old newspaper files in Baton Rouge. Perhaps you'd like to check

on it in the morning. Oh, why wait till morning? Won't I be able to check it out

tonight with old Captain Jeremy himself?

Or do you think maybe he's gonna take the night off?

You know, after all he's been through, maybe he's gonna be a bit gun-shy.

Duncan, I have had enough of your smirky superiority and bad manners.

You can believe what you like.

This place is all yours.

And everything it contains.

Let's go, Rachel.

And, uh, you'd better lock this.

Keeps out the draft.

Back so soon?

Well, make yourselves at home, dear cousins. We have a long night.

captain jeremy have done huh oh yeah started down the stairs to investigate

well not me i've had a long trip i'm gonna get some sleep i'm sorry

you hear me

listen why don't you just uh give it up and forget it i'm

gonna be here for the night

that sort of thing went out with bustles and buggy whips.

Ah, the old creaking stair.

That's truly a creative touch.

Don't you have a squeaking door?

Surely you must have a good old squeaking door around the place.

If you have nothing further to offer me, I'm about to get me some sleep.

I'm sorry, I can't say the same for you.

First, one little more nightcap.

Sure you won't join me?

The rapping sounds. Oh, fine, fine.

Have your fun. I want the whole familiar routine.

I want rapping sounds, sudden gusts of wind, musty odors.

You haven't forgotten the musty odors, have you?

You did put something in that drink, didn't you?

I won't do you any good!

Barbiturates have no effect on me!

No effect at all.

There! There, you see?

I'm better?

Even Novocaine doesn't do the job on me unless I let it.

It is simply a matter of willpower.

Now, either you let it or you don't let it.

Oh, that was a cheap trick.

You could at least let me get my cigarette lit.

Where the devil you put in a drink, huh?

happens to me, you'll be the first.

You'll be the first, I suspect.

You didn't have to pick the lock, you know, I would have let you in.

Why didn't you knock?

All right, you hear me?

I'm all right again. I'm on my feet, and I've got the gun.

All right, that's enough.

That's enough!

You hear me?

All right, I know you're there.

But I want to tell you...

I have stopped thinking this is funny. I'm not very amused.

Oliver?

All right, Rachel?

All right, whatever you are, Jeremy, Caroline, all right, look at this gun.

You see it?

Yeah, you can see it.

Don't you think I won't use it?

Oliver, Jeremy, Rachel, Caroline.

I'm gonna shoot the first thing that moves.

Animal, vegetable, mineral, or what have you.

All right.

That does it.

From now on, I take no responsibility for what happens.

All right, I hear you.

I hear you. Over there.

Now, look.

Hey, I don't want to shoot you, but you're pushing us too far.

Ah, I see you now. I see you.

Now, look, don't make me do it.

I figured you right, didn't I, Oliver?

It is Cousin Oliver, isn't it?

Well, of course it has to be. I mean, Rachel wouldn't be caught dead in that

nightgown.

What is that? A knife in your chest.

Huh?

That's very clever. That's a very clever idea for a tie pin.

I might merchandise that.

Oliver, let's just knock it off. The party's over. I'm not going to scare it.

All right, let's just take off the mask and we'll have our little laugh.

All right, that's close enough, Oliver.

Listen, if you're here, listen, use your head. I'm not afraid of your comic opera

ghost, but I am afraid I'm going to have to kill it.

I'll kill it.

Hey, Oliver, don't.

Look, Oliver.

Jeremy.

No, stop it. I mean what I say. Look.

If you think I'm going to let you put those hands on me, you're just... All

right, what are they?

What do you got there? Some kind of glove?

Oh, stop it.

Please, stop it.

Rachel?

Rachel! Come here, quick!

He's dead.

His cigarettes. I'll bet you forgot his cigarettes. I did not. I put them in his

pocket. You never give me credit for anything.

There's one thing I'll give you credit for. The whole idea.

Such an obvious, childish, transparent stunt.

Well, even Duncan saw straight through it before it even got off the ground.

Oh, yes?

Well, if he was so smart, why did he have a heart attack?

Why didn't you tell us you had a weak heart? He didn't know.

Don't talk to him like that.

It gives me the creeps.

No, don't put him in the luggage.

I want him in the front seat. If you think I'm going to sit in the front seat

with him sitting between us... It's not necessary for you to come along at all,

you know.

If you think I intend to stay in that house alone after what's happened...

Would you stop this debate? I'm holding the heavy end.

Might as well get out.

No need to get your feet wet.

And please be careful.

I don't want anything to happen to my car.

Now that's the quality I fell in love with.

Tenderness.

And forgot to turn off the lights.

My dear girl, if a man has a heart attack while driving to Baton Rouge and

runs off the road in a dead condition, he'd hardly consider turning off the

lights just to keep your battery from running down.

Hurry it up, can't you?

I'm getting a chill.

Well, I'll be getting double pneumonia if I don't get my feet dry.

Oliver. What?

Do we have to go back to that house tonight? Certainly. That's the whole

idea. Now, we picked Duncan up at the station, drove him out to Black Rock. He

took a look around, decided he wanted to stay at the hotel.

We were tired, gave him the car, and we stayed on.

I dare say we are committed to that story now.

Right. It wouldn't do for us to be anywhere close to him when it happened.

It might arouse suspicion.

Suspicion?

No, but you yourself said that we haven't committed any crime.

Yes, but we profit by what's happened.

If anybody would think that perhaps we might have deliberately scared him to

death... Don't say such a thing.

Don't even suggest it. I'm sorry, darling. I realize how delicate you are.

Now, come on. If we go this way, we'll be home in ten minutes.

Oh. Oliver.

What?

I'd give up the whole thing right now.

The property, the profit, all of it.

If only I didn't have to spend another night in that house.

What? After sticking with Everett all these years? I mean it, Oliver.

I'm afraid to go back there.

Darling, you are so wonderfully impractical.

Next thing you know, you'll be believing it's haunted, too.

It is.

Now Before someone finds us here

Now

will you stop all this nonsense

You know, this house, inside out, if there were any ghosts knocking about,

I'm sure we'd have stirred one up before tonight.

Before tonight, we never did anything to stir one up.

Well, that's a fine, enlightened statement.

Oliver. What? Oliver, please, I... I know I'm being foolish

and female, but please humor me.

We've always felt the same about things before.

Don't you feel something... something different tonight?

Of course I do.

We've been through a harrowing experience.

It went far beyond anything we intended, but it's over and it's finished and

that's the end of it.

No.

No, I... Oh, I never gave any more credence to that story about Jeremy

Ransom and what's-her-name Carolyn any more than you did.

until tonight.

But when I was waiting downstairs, watching Duncan, and you

in that silly outfit, I swear I was almost as frightened as he was.

I always knew that I should have been on the stage.

No, Oliver.

No, it wasn't you or him.

It was if somebody else was in that room.

Some other presence.

Didn't you feel it at all?

Of course.

I was scared stiff.

But not of the bullets.

I knew I'd switched them to blanks after he passed out.

What I was really afraid of was that he'd figure that out and come after me

with a fireplace poker or something.

Then you didn't feel it.

As if Jeremy Ransom and Caroline were in that room, backing you up, egging you

on. The man had a stroke, a heart attack.

There's no way in the world that we can be blamed for this. There are no signs

of violence in the body, no stab wounds, no bullet wounds.

You sound so cold-blooded.

Well, you're making my blood cold with this infernal... Oliver, please!

Please, let's not quarrel.

Not tonight.

Not tonight, of all nights.

I'm sorry.

We're all on edge.

Everything will look different in daylight.

Yes.

I guess there isn't anything to do now but... but wait.

Wait for the daylight.

Oliver, wake up. What? What? Huh?

Wake up. Oh, Rachel, what now?

Listen.

There's somebody downstairs.

Or something.

Oh, you're a fool, Rachel.

What are you going to do?

I'm going downstairs to find out who's sulking about.

Don't you know?

What do you mean?

Oliver.

It's Jeremy.

Oh, snap out of it, Rich.

Oliver.

Please don't leave me alone here.

Hold on to this.

And remember, they're not blanks this time.

Oliver.

Oliver, please don't go down there.

Please. Please don't.

Who's there?

Now, I know there's someone in here.

If you just tell me what you want, perhaps I can arrange for you to have

it.

I mean, there's... There's no need for any mystery about this.

I'm, uh... Well, I'm perfectly willing to...

Oliver?

Oliver?

Oliver, is that you?

Oh, Oliver.

What is you?

What is you, isn't it?

I... I couldn't see you.

All of it.

He didn't even touch me.

I had to shoot him, Oliver.

I had to.

He's dead.

I killed him.

I killed him.

Mr.

Judson? That you, Mr. Judson?

Ma'am?

Are you all right?

Where did you come from?

Well, we heard the shots.

How did you get here so soon?

We found your wagon, ma'am, down by the bayou with some strange man.

The fellow said his name was Ransom, Jeremy Ransom. It was out of his head.

Said someone was trying to kill him and his wife.

So he ran off, and we're looking for him. He come this way.

No.

No, no, no, no. He's not here.

No?

We just swore them shots come upstairs there.

You were mistaken.

Maybe so, but I think we'd better have a look-see just the same. No, no, no,

there's nothing to see up there.

There's nobody.

There's nothing to see.

It's no use, Rachel.

He's here, and they'll find him.

Nobody will ever believe that it was all... all a mistake.

A mistake?

Yes.

Yes. You see, we thought he was a prowler, a trespasser. You see, his name

isn't Ransom. He's our cousin. Cousin? Our cousin Duncan. But you see... Now,

hold on, ma'am.

I think you made a mighty big mistake, ma'am.

I mean, if Everett left him the house like you meant to, I don't see how you

could take him for a trespasser.

I mean, it wasn't your house, now was it?

No.

No, it wasn't.

All of it.

This house.

Everything in it.