Softly spoken man
A softly spoken man visited film director Alexander Mackendrick and actor Alec Guinness during the troubled production in 1957 of a planned sequel to The Ladykillers. The man, who would be described as "young" by actor Peter Sellers, another cast member of the production, urged Mackendrick to either abandon production on the film or choose a different filming location than the house they had been using, Wester Drumlins, which was known as a locus of disturbing events. The man further warned that "killer statues" were behind the project's troubles. Mackendrick was unnerved and heeded the man's warning, with the project officially scrapped late in the year.
In 1974, Sellers recounted the soft-spoken man's visit when he was interviewed on Parkinson, dismissing the man's warning as "mumbo jumbo" and describing Mackendrick's reaction as "extraordinary". (PROSE: The Very Real Mystery of Wester Drumlins [+]Loading...["The Very Real Mystery of Wester Drumlins (short story)"])