It is 25 years to the month that a film producer named Geoffrey Reeve came to Knebworth House to make a film called “The Shooting Party”. Of all the films that have used the House as a location, this one has a particular resonance because almost the whole film was shot here and every room was used for its original purpose (film companies have a tendency to turn dining rooms and drawing rooms into bedrooms – actual bedrooms, they say, are too small to fit the crew into!). “The Shooting Party” is a beautiful film and the Special Edition DVD makes a good Christmas present for anyone who is fond of the House, Gardens and Woods.
It is therefore a happy coincidence that, for the whole of this month, we have played host to a film producer called Tom Reeve – Geoffrey Reeve’s son. Tom has been making a film called “Blind Man’s Bluff”, a mystery starring Tom Conti and Daryl Hannah. Again almost the whole film has been shot here and, again, the film company are using the House “as a house”… where blind writer, Conti, lives in seclusion, until mysterious American girl, Hannah, turns up, supposedly to take dictation of his book, but actually to- well, you’ll have to wait until you find this DVD under the tree next Christmas!
Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com