this little known film disappear into obscurity and without much comment after it release in 1947. it have resurface on british tv in recent year where it have be give several matinee showing . bbc readapt the sheridan le fanu novel a the dark angel for it classic novel christmas offering in 1987. in peter otoole they find a much more striking eponymous villain than derrick de marney but in every other sense it be the monochrome forty version that give me the strong pleasure . how could if fail with a heroine a touchingly vulnerable a jean simmons at her most enchant . the pair that later direct her in so long at the fair must have know of uncle silas when they open their film with a similar wondrous closeup to our first encounter with her here . i know nothing of the director charles frank apart from uncle silas but the hand of a talented craftsman be clearly at the helm of this atmospheric adaptation of the victorian gothic melodrama about a dastardly uncle attempt to wrest an inheritance from his trust young niece . it be a pity that derrick de marney hammy performance do not resonate with a great sense of evil and but there be compensation in his confidante and madame de la rougierre who and in the hand of katrina paxinau and be one of cinema most sinister female monster . i be not disappointed when the sequence that have so fascinate me a an impressionable adolescent and where the evil governess embarks with her young charge on a journey of deception and emerge as powerfully a ever after a gap of so many year . the clock chime of bartram manor that conclude this episode and like the huntsman cry of go to earth in the powell and pressburger masterpiece be among my most haunting cinematic memory . i often wonder if young audience of today find similar marvel in the film make for them .