Lost Hearts (A Ghost Story for Christmas)
Lost Hearts is a short film made by the BBC and broadcast as part of the series A Ghost Story for Christmas. It was originally broadcast on Christmas Day 1973. As with most of the episodes in the series, Lost Hearts is based on a story written by the English author M. R. James.
Even without the benefit of modern-day special effects, the film, which is only 34 minutes long, successfully fosters a foreboding atmosphere and the scenes featuring ghosts are surprisingly unsettling.
Lost Hearts begins by introducing an 11-year-old orphan named Stephen (Simon Gipps-Kent), who is travelling by horse and carriage to the country estate of his distant cousin, Mr Abney (Joseph O’Conor), who he has never met.
Mr Abney, who is several decades older than Stephen, is a scholar with a keen interest in alchemy, who firmly believes he can achieve immortality. Although he spends much of his time in his study, Abney gives Stephen a warm welcome and instructs his servants to take care of his young charge and feed him well.
Abney also shows a strangely intense interest in Stephen’s age. The young man has a birthday coming up in a few days. Abney asks Stephen if he is certain that he will be 12. Stephen confirms this, causing his cousin to become increasingly excited and enthusiastic about the upcoming event.
Abney has two servants in his employ, Parkes, a manservant and Mrs Bunch, the housekeeper. Mrs Bunch is an amiable soul who takes to Stephen straight away. When the young man enquires about his uncle, she tells him he’s a good man, who has already taken in two other orphan children, Phoebe and Giovani, causing Stephen to be excited by the prospect of having a couple of playmates. However, they are no longer present in the house. Taken in by Abney at different times, both of them stayed a few weeks and then disappeared. 
Mrs Bunch says she believes Phoebe may have been abducted by the gypsies because there was singing around the house the night after she left and lights in the woods like will-o’-the-wisps.
As for Giovani, he was a young Italian boy with a talent for playing the hurdy-gurdy. Like Phoebe, he was “off one morning.” Nobody saw him again.
However, regardless of what Mrs Bunch may believe, you don’t have to watch the film long before it becomes apparent that neither child left. Both are still present in spiritual form and, when they appear to Stephen late one evening, waking him from sleep, he goes into hysterics after seeing the holes in their chests that reveal their missing hearts.
Lost Hearts is a great little film that should appeal to most people who enjoy ghost stories set in the Victorian era. In addition to being dark and unsettling, it’s also a little sad but at least, in this case, the two children who had their lives stolen from them manage to get the last laugh.