28. The Old Dark House (1932), dir. James Whale
Saturday, 12 January 2019 20:19This is an excellent black and white Universal scary house movie which ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lady_lugosi1313 lent me on DVD. There is nothing supernatural in it, but it is very Gothic indeed, featuring as it does an ancient and remote Welsh manor-house on a stormy night, inhabited by a crotchety sister and a spiky brother who harbour dread family secrets including an aged father and another criminally-insane brother locked in the attic. Into their world stumble a collection of very modern characters who have lost their way driving through the storm, including a fairly ordinary married middle-class couple, their louche bachelor friend, a self-made northern industrial millionaire and a show-girl. Over the course of the night, drama unfolds and romance blossoms. The cast includes Boris Karloff as a mute butler who turns violent under the influence of drink, while the industrialist is Charles Laughton in fine form and the show-girl is Lilian Bond, who looks so much like wicked_prose that I believe I wrote and told her so when I originally watched it. But the story really works above all because of the brother and sister who are the main inhabitants of the house - Horace Pemm, played by Ernest Thesiger who has a wonderfully beak-like nose for peering down at people over when thrown into high relief by a candle, and Rebecca Pemm, played by Eva Moore who cackles and mutters beautifully and is very insistent about telling both her brother and the lost travellers that "We've no beds! No beds." As a result, they have to spend the night on rather hard-looking sofas in front of the fire - a tough fate in particular for the wife of the middle-class couple, played by Gloria Stuart, who early on changes into a backless silk gown for no better reason than this is a 1930s Hollywood film and someone has mentioned dinner, and thus presumably spends the entire story absolutely freezing to death while the storm rages around the building. She doesn't help this by opening a window in the room she's been sent into to get changed immediately after putting on the dress, even though she was explicitly told not to, leaving her battling with a howling gale and severe reproaches from the sister. Highly recommended for everything except sensible clothing tips.
lady_lugosi1313 lent me on DVD. There is nothing supernatural in it, but it is very Gothic indeed, featuring as it does an ancient and remote Welsh manor-house on a stormy night, inhabited by a crotchety sister and a spiky brother who harbour dread family secrets including an aged father and another criminally-insane brother locked in the attic. Into their world stumble a collection of very modern characters who have lost their way driving through the storm, including a fairly ordinary married middle-class couple, their louche bachelor friend, a self-made northern industrial millionaire and a show-girl. Over the course of the night, drama unfolds and romance blossoms. The cast includes Boris Karloff as a mute butler who turns violent under the influence of drink, while the industrialist is Charles Laughton in fine form and the show-girl is Lilian Bond, who looks so much like wicked_prose that I believe I wrote and told her so when I originally watched it. But the story really works above all because of the brother and sister who are the main inhabitants of the house - Horace Pemm, played by Ernest Thesiger who has a wonderfully beak-like nose for peering down at people over when thrown into high relief by a candle, and Rebecca Pemm, played by Eva Moore who cackles and mutters beautifully and is very insistent about telling both her brother and the lost travellers that "We've no beds! No beds." As a result, they have to spend the night on rather hard-looking sofas in front of the fire - a tough fate in particular for the wife of the middle-class couple, played by Gloria Stuart, who early on changes into a backless silk gown for no better reason than this is a 1930s Hollywood film and someone has mentioned dinner, and thus presumably spends the entire story absolutely freezing to death while the storm rages around the building. She doesn't help this by opening a window in the room she's been sent into to get changed immediately after putting on the dress, even though she was explicitly told not to, leaving her battling with a howling gale and severe reproaches from the sister. Highly recommended for everything except sensible clothing tips.
