The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972) (2025)

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• Review by Michael501 📺 ★★★½

  1972 In Review - December
  #2

  A mysterious, very old solicitor Mr. Blunden visits Mrs. Allen and her young children in her squalid, tiny Camden Town flat and makes her an offer she cannot refuse.

  The Amazing Mr. Blunden is a delightful old-fashioned ghost story in the best traditional sense. It’s also a film set at Christmas that is not about Christmas, but set in Victorian England so feels almost like it came from Dickens. Directed to the hilt by actor Lionel Jeffries, who clearly has a thorough understanding of his genre, this is timeless stuff, a children's film filled with the kind of atmosphere and engaging storyline that you won't find in most of today's soulless fare.
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  The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972)

• Review by Benjamin ★★★★½ 5

  I got to go to a Q+A with Mark Kermode and he introduced the film etc, however 45 minutes before the film started they did the Q+A, there was a special guest who was the director of An Irish Goodbye and he let people hold his oscar, I went up and met him and held the Oscar it was amazing.

  Enough about the experience, the film was a blast, I enjoyed it so much the score was incredible the performances were great and the plot was enjoyable, pretty much whay Mark Kermode said about it beforehand.

  This was an incredible experience I wont ever have again, I held an Oscar, an Oscar that is mad. Best cinema experience i’ll ever have in my life.

• Review by Jason Still ★★★

  Charmingly sentimental family fare with a surprisingly dark edge you don’t find in children’s films these days…

  …part ghost story, part magic potion time travel - setting & following its own rules which we didn’t question at all - until the end credits 🤔… (at which point all the cast reappear to wave and wish us goodbye in character!)…

  …mysterious & intriguing through to a heartwarming ‘oh, very clever’ conclusion, with occasional panto humour that tickled my 7yo companion and a final act (for a U certificate) that delivers real tension - something I felt in the tightening grip on my right arm.

• Review by We Love Movies!!! 🎬 ★★★½

  Lionel Jeffries had quite an influence on my film going childhood . He starred in the brilliant Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and directed The Railway children both of which I watched countless times in the 70’s but for some reason I never saw The Amazing Mr Blunden - Until now.
  
  A mysterious old man , Mr. Blunden , visits Mrs. Allen and her children in her Camden Town flat and makes her an offer she cannot refuse. The family become the housekeepers to a derelict country mansion . One day the children meet the spirits of two other children who died in the mansion nearly a hundred years previously. Will the children be able to help their new friends and…

• Review by holas79 ★★★★½

  A really charming film - part time travel, part ghost story with children racing against time to save two other children 100 years in the past. With a U certificate but there are a few creepy moments to keep you on your toes, and did Diana Dors call the housemaid a slut?! The adults throughout are particularly good, Dors is a horrifically grotesque Mrs Wickers and her ex-wrestler husband played by Lodge has clearly taken too many blows to the head. Villiers is delightfully pompous as Uncle Bertie, and Naismith isn't bad as the mercurial Mr Blunden. The children let the side down a bit, but do their best I suppose, and everyone waves to the camera as the credits roll which is an odd touch. I'm surprised this isn't mentioned more often when people discuss great family friendly films.

• Review by Leonora Anne Mint ★★★½

  Trippy Dickensian ghost time travel antics!

  Somehow perfect for Halloween even though it all takes place in either Christmas or springtime.

  My siblings and I spent about an hour after watching trying to decipher the ending, and we all concluded that it just doesn't make sense.

• Review by Henry Rowlands ★★★½

  I've heard Mark Kermode mention this film a couple times in the past, so when I saw it was getting a remake by Mark Gatiss coming soon I thought to finally watch Lionel Jeffries's 'The Amazing Mr Blunden'. While the movie suffers from ultimately not making any sense (no big deal), it succeeded in charming me and providing a warm festive feel that the massive plot holes didn't bother me so much. It was also surprisingly witty, with a great cast of supporting characters, particularly Diana Dors as Mrs Wickens (her pronunciation of words alone had me cracking up), yet it's still a pretty dark story for a family picture. The story is literally people trying to kill some kids…

• Review by Paul D ★★★

  Lionel Jeffries' follow-up to his much beloved The Railway Children is not going to supplant that particular film in anyone's affections, but it's not without its charms.

  And speaking of The Railway Children, one is immediately struck by similarities in the set-up for the story, with a fatherless family of three children, moving to the country, although this time daddy is not about to make a heart-warming appearance at the end on account of being dead. Incidentally the manner in which we are seen off at the end by the cast, echoes Jeffries' earlier film.

  As for Mr Blunden, he's not exactly amazing, except for the unsurprising revelation that he's a ghost, he's actually more than a bit of a…

• Review by Luke Thorne ★★★★

  Lionel Jeffries directs this family fantasy in which two children are asked by ghosts to solve an ancient mystery. Starring Laurence Naismith, Lynne Frederick and Garry Miller.

  Adapted from the novel The Ghosts by Antonia Barber, which was published three years earlier, the story concerns two young children (Lynne Frederick and Garry Miller) who locate with their mother (Dorothy Alison) to an ancient manor.

  The friendly occupant ghost (Laurence Naismith) presents them to two ghost children (Rosalyn Landor and Marc Granger), who request them to crack an old clandestine. This necessitates them to journey back in time to rescue two orphans from a terrible uncle and an awful demise in a burning home.

  Lynne Frederick and Garry Miller both give…

• Review by Rowan Crump ★★★★★

  One of the masterpieces of early 70s British children's films, brilliantly directed by Lionel Jeffries, with a terrific cast of both young and adult performers - the stand-out's being Laurence Naismith as Mr Blunden, the sadly short-lived Lynne Frederick as Lucy, the almost-ethereal Rosalyn Landor as Sara, an unrecognisable Diana Dors as Mrs Wickens, David Lodge as the mute and quite threatening Mr Wickens, Madeline Smith as their child-minded daughter Bella, and James Villiers as the selfish Uncle Bertie. I love this film. Perfect for the festive season.

• Review by FamilyMovieTime Podcast 2

  Gotta watch this one at night...reminded me of "The Eyes of the Amaryllis" (1982); would make for a mysterious, supernatural double-feature!

• Review by Richard Parker ★★★★½

  Delightful ghost story with a difference directed by Lionel Jeffries, after the enchanting Railway Children. Laurence Naismith plays the title character, and is the nominal star although he appears at the beginning and the end, while the quartet of children carry the bulk of the film. They travel in time using a potion, but Blunden himself appears in both present and past, connected by a type of psychic link. Wonderful to see David Lodge and Diana Dors playing the 'evil' housekeepers and the whole thing was rounded off by the wonderful closing credits.