Robert Wise was in pre-production (Wise would misremember this as 'post-production') on
West Side Story when he read a review in
Time magazine of author
Shirley Jackson's novel,
The Haunting of Hill House. Wise read the book and found it frightening; he passed it to screenwriter colleague Nelson Gidding, with whom he had worked on the film
I Want to Live! (1958). Gidding did a full
story treatment for Wise before proceeding to work on the adaptation. Wise and Gidding travelled to
Bennington, Vermont, United States, to meet Jackson, who told them that it was a good idea but that the novel was definitely about the supernatural. Nonetheless, elements of the insanity concept remained in the script, so that the audience was left wondering whether the supernatural events in the film were in Eleanor's mind or whether they were real. It was also during their visit to speak with Jackson that Wise and Gidding chose the title for the film. As they did not want to keep the book title, they asked Jackson if she had considered an alternative title. She suggested
The Haunting, which Wise and Gidding immediately adopted.
Script Writing the screenplay took about six months. During this period, Gidding worked alone, and although he passed some of his work to Wise to show him that work on the screenplay was progressing well, he and Wise did not otherwise collaborate on the screenplay. The screenplay was finished just after Wise completed work on
West Side Story. Wise approached
United Artists with the project, but after much delay they turned him down. Wise's agent then suggested that, since Wise owed
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) a film under an old contract, Wise should take the project there. MGM agreed, but would only give Wise a $1 million budget. Wise knew he could not do the film at MGM's Culver City Studios (now the
Sony Pictures Studios), so he took it to England, as the
Eady Levy gave tax breaks and financing to films made there as a way of subsidising and promoting the British film industry. Someone suggested to Wise that he approach
MGM's Borehamwood Studios subsidiary. Wise had been asked to come to the United Kingdom for a
Royal Command Performance of
West Side Story, and during the trip made the financing pitch to MGM Borehamwood. They offered a budget of $1.050 million. With the Eady Levy support, this allowed the film to go forward with production in the United Kingdom. Wise had seen Harris on stage, and felt she was right for the part of the psychologically fragile Eleanor. To make Bloom's Theodora character appear more bohemian, mod fashion designer
Mary Quant was hired to design clothing specifically for Bloom's character.
Richard Johnson, under contract to MGM, was cast as Dr Markway. Wise saw Johnson in a
Royal Shakespeare Company production of
The Devils. Impressed with his acting, he offered him the role. Johnson later said he received invaluable film acting advice from Wise. Wise told him to keep his eyes steady, to blink less, and to try not to time his acting (Wise said he would take care of that in the editing room). Johnson also credited Wise with helping him to craft a much more natural acting performance. Tamblyn told the cinema magazine
Film Review in 1995 that while reading the script a second time, he realised the character was much more interesting. "This is the ironic part", he said, "it turned out to be one of my favourite films that I've been in!" Uncredited actress Freda Knorr is seen in shots before and after the fall; it is her face audiences associate with the "Second Mrs Crain". Tilton also appears when Abigail Crain's Nurse-Companion hangs herself at the top of the spiral staircase in the library. Although uncredited actress Rosemary Dorken is seen climbing the stairs and going past the camera, it is Tilton's body that suddenly appears in shot again as the Nurse-Companion hangs herself. Some of the cast and crew were housed in Ettington Park during exterior shooting. However, the location did not sit well with Harris and Bloom who upon arriving at Ettington Park thought it was "scary looking outside", and Wise had to reassure them. The sets were designed to be brightly lit, with no dark corners or recesses, and decorated in a
Rococo style. All rooms had ceilings to create a claustrophobic effect on film (this was unusual, as most film sets forgo ceilings to add in lighting and filming). Actor Richard Johnson said that the sets' eeriness created a "subdued atmosphere" among the cast and crew. Wise very much wanted to make
The Haunting a tribute to
Val Lewton, the producer and writer under whom Wise had directed his first film (the supernatural horror picture
Curse of the Cat People). Wise and Boulton also planned shots that kept the camera moving, utilised low-angle shots, and incorporated unusual
pans and
tracking shots. This led to some of the most active camera movements in Wise's film career. To accentuate the feeling that the house was alive, exterior shots were filmed so that the windows appeared to be eyes. During the shoot, Harris suffered from
depression, and believed that her co-stars did not take the film as seriously as she did. At times, she would cry in her makeup chair prior to the day's shoot. The other actors remember her as being distant, not a part of their socialising and joking, and Harris did not speak to Bloom during filming, which puzzled Bloom. Afterward, Harris told Bloom that the lack of interaction had helped her build her own performance and the two women reconciled. Some of the sounds are very low in the bass range, which can cause physical sensations at high volume.
Effects and editing The film contains a number of
special effects, many of which were achieved in ways not immediately obvious to the viewer. In one scene, a supernatural force pushes against a large parlour door, bending it inward repeatedly. Though the door appears to some viewers to have been made of latex, it was in fact made of
laminated wood; the strange buckling was simply the result of a strong crew member pushing a piece of timber hard against it. Two physical effects were used to make the spiral staircase in the library appear frightening. In one scene, the camera appears to ascend the staircase at a rapid rate. Wise achieved this effect by using the staircase's handrail as a makeshift
dolly track: a camera was attached to the rail and then slowly allowed to slide down, with the speed of the descent controlled by a wire attached to the camera. The sequence was then reversed and run at high speed, which gave the final cut an unworldly feel. The effect was created by tying portions of the steps and railing to a cable that ran inside the staircase's central support column. When the cable was slackened, elements of the stairway loosened up and moved freely. Conversely, when the cable was tightened, the staircase appeared solid and stable. Theodora's lesbianism helps to create conflict in the picture. Had Theodora been heterosexual, Eleanor's growing attraction to Markway would not have threatened her. But with Theodora a clear lesbian, Markway becomes a threat that causes conflict between the psychic and the investigator. According to Harris, film censors demanded that Theo never be shown to touch Eleanor, in order to keep the lesbianism less obvious.
The Haunting is one of the first horror films to employ an original score written in this idiom. Searle's music was never released as a commercial soundtrack album, however The Westminster Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by
Kenneth Alwyn, recorded a selection from the score, reconstructed by
Philip Lane, featured on the 1996 Silva Screen Records compilation album
Horror! ==Release==