can anyone help me with the title of this film?
its an old black and white film,horror, thriller,suspense not sure….. about a couple that kills an old woman, and while the old woman is in the coffin, one of them cuts her finger off for her ring, later a shadow of the old woman in a ( rocking ? ) chair appears on a wall in the house, and they cant gt rid of it, dont know any names of cast, directors, writers, or the date, been trying to figue this out for years,and see if its on dvd
i think it was a 40’s or 50’s film
Filmfind Changed status to publish Feb 7, 2020
Too many differences for this to be the right answer, unless your memory is of scenes from two different movies. Rod Serling wrote an episode of Night Gallery named “Certain Shadows on the Wall”. A man slowly poisons his sister (played by Agnus Moorehead) to inherit her estate. The shadow she cast from her deathbed appears on the living room wall. No amount of paint will cover the shadow on the wall.
Two other sisters live in the house, one played by Grayson Hall of Dark Shadows. One of the sisters finds the sedative that their brother gave his sickly sister, and slips some into his tea to “help him sleep”. He dies from his own poison that night and his shadow, sitting in a rocking chair reading Dickens to his invalid sister, as he did in life, joins her shadow on the wall. The remaining sisters are pleased to have the family together even in death.
I realize this probably isn’t the movie you are looking for. It is a 30 minute color TV show from 1970 — not a black and white film from decades earlier. There are no scenes of Agnus in a coffin, and nobody cuts off her finger to steal a ring. But it does have a murder victim’s shadow on the wall, and her murder’s shadow also appears on the wall later and he is seated in a rocking chair. The black shadows on a white wall make those shots appear to be black and white. You can watch that episode of Night Gallery on youtube, if you think any of this sounds familiar.
The Other is an excellent horror film that was released in 1971, directed by Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird), and based on an acclaimed best-selling novel by Thomas Tryon. That color movie has a very intense scene of a boy sneaking into the family parlor at night where his father’s coffin lies in repose. He cuts off his father’s finger to steal his ring. He keeps the finger and ring in a box.
Night Gallery and The Other played on TV a lot in the 1970’s. It is a bit of a stretch, but maybe you are remembering scenes from two different shows that you saw around the same time in your life.
If not, I hope someone else can identify the movie you asked about. I’d like to watch it too. I love creepy old atmospheric thrillers.