The Ghost

The Ghost (Italian title: Lo Spettro) is a 1963 Italian horror film directed by Riccardo Freda, using the pseudonym "Robert Hampton". The film stars Barbara Steele and Peter Baldwin. Other titles for the film include The Spectre and Lo Spettro del Dr. Hichcock. Plot In 1910 in Scotland, the ailing Doctor Hichcock (Elio Jotta), confined to his wheelchair, presides over seances in which his housekeeper, Catherine (Harriet Medin), acts as the medium. According to Hichcock's theory, shots of lethal poison followed by an antidote could cure his physical disability shortly after. The younger Doctor Livingstone (Peter Baldwin) stays with him in the house to regularly administer this dangerous treatment. Hichcock's wife Margaret (Barbara Steele) finds living with her husband increasingly unbearable. Possibly suspected by her husband, she is having an affair with Livingstone. She implores him to murder Hichcock, which he eventually does by injecting the poison but not administering the antidote. During the distribution of Hichcock's estate, Margaret and Livingstone learn Hichcock only recently changed his last will and testament. Margaret gets the house and its contents, but only a third share of her husband's bonds, shares, currency, and jewels, kept in the doctor's safe. Upon Catherine telling them that the key to the safe containing the valuables was in the jacket buried with him, they secretly visit his vault, open his coffin and retrieve it, intending to take a larger share of the valuables. Livingstone opens the safe while Margaret is out of the room with Catherine. It is empty. Later, they hear Hichcock's voice calling to them and experience other poltergeist phenomena, including the appearance of the ghost-like Hichcock himself. One night, Catherine, apparently possessed by Hichcock, speaks in his voice and tells Margaret that his valuables are buried beneath his coffin. She returns to the vault to find a golden box. Upon opening it, she cuts herself. The box contains nothing but a skull. Catherine then insinuates that Livingstone took the valuables for himself when he opened the safe in Margaret's absence. Margaret finds jewels in his bag, much to Livingstone's surprise. Margaret slashes him to death with a razor and drags him into the cellar, where she uses kerosene from a lamp to burn his body.