The Woman in Black (1989 Film) - Background

Background

• The novel and play are not to be confused with Wilkie Collins's Victorian thriller The Woman in White - although Susan Hill admitted this is what inspired the name for her own.
• The actress who portrays The Woman in Black, Pauline Moran, is best known for playing Miss Lemon, the redoubtable secretary of Hercule Poirot, in the LWT television series Agatha Christie's Poirot, starring David Suchet.
• The adaptation differs from the novel in several small ways.
  • Mr Kidd is named Kipps in the book, other names are also different.
  • In the novel, Kipps himself does not die; the entire tale is told years later by an elderly Kipps whose wife and child had been killed in an accident involving a runaway horse and trap whilst he looked on.
  • Mr Sweetman (in the novel he is called Mr. Bentley) is a kindly figure in the novel, unlike the disdainful coward of the adaptation.
  • The phonograph does not appear in the novel.
  • The dog Spider is female in the novel, male in the adaptation.
  • Kidd/ Kipps does not burn down his law office in the novel.
  • The accident involving the gypsy girl does not happen in the novel.
  • The child does not talk to Kipps in the novel.
  • The toy soldier does not appear in the novel.
  • Spider remains with Kipps in the novel and almost drowns in the marshes after being lured into them by (presumably) the Woman in Black. Kipps manages to save her and almost drowns himself. When he comes back ashore and looks up at the nursery window, the Woman in Black is watching him.
  • In the novel Kipps hears the sound of a rocking chair coming from the nursery, not a ball bouncing.
  • In the novel, Sam Daily's wife is very shy and withdrawn.
• In the adaptation, references to Charlie Chaplin and the Great War are used to set the scene historically.
• The screenwriter, Nigel Kneale, is best known for his Quatermass films.