THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932)
There are still a few one-off strays among the monster movie sequels left to review in this blog series on Universal Classic Horror. THE OLD DARK HOUSE is directed by James Whale, rounding out the four films he contributed to the series. His FRANKENSTEIN (1931), BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935), and THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933) are the first, second, and fourth highest rated of the 50 films by IMDB users. THE OLD DARK HOUSE comes in at a tie for eighth place, right up there with THE WOLF MAN (1941), THE MUMMY (1932), and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1923).
THE OLD DARK HOUSE is sort of a haunted house movie, although none of the elements are explicitly supernatural. Two groups of travelers in the back roads and mountain passes(?) of Wales are trapped overnight by landslides and flooding in a dark old house populated by the Femm family and their grotesque butler, Morgan (Boris Karloff). The Femms appear to consist of an ascerbic old bachelor named Horace (Ernest Thesiger, who also played Dr. Pretorius in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN) and his half-deaf religious maniac spinster sister, Rebecca (Eva Moore, said in her youth to be a great beauty of the Victorian era). They snap and fight with each other. It is eventually revealed that there are other members of the household, including a mad pyromaniac with homicidal tendencies. The involuntary houseguests include a chorus girl, a gay businessman, a disillusioned young veteran of World War I, and a young married couple.
Much of the film consists of dark social comedy as these disparate characters without wealth are forced to interact. Whale gets fine performances out of his actors, and the result is more revealing of social mores and the way times have changed than any of the more outlandish Universal horror films. The meticulous way in which Whale filmed the beginning scenes with the old windowless car driving through the rainstorm is especially impressive, and it was really cool to see an ordinary 1932 car in operation that wasn't a shiny Rolls Royce. Having worked the legal side of involuntary civil commitments, I sometimes have trouble with depictions of madness on screen. The chilling denoument involving the mad brother, however, may be the most realistic protrayal of a dangerously insane person that I have ever seen on screen--and a great performance by stage actor Brember Wills. So there's an awful lot of good here, even though the tone of the film can be offputting, especially at first when you don't know where the film is going. It's the kind of film which you might like more on the second or third viewing than the first. THE OLD DARK HOUSE was remade in 1963, then spoofed in movies such as HAUNTED HONEYMOON (1986). You won't dig it, however, unless you can get into its antiqueness.
Universal Classic Horror Blog Series Rating:
4 - For everyone
3 - For horror fans only
2 - For classic horror fans only
1 - For Pete's sake
0 - Paging MST3K
THE OLD DARK HOUSE is sort of a haunted house movie, although none of the elements are explicitly supernatural. Two groups of travelers in the back roads and mountain passes(?) of Wales are trapped overnight by landslides and flooding in a dark old house populated by the Femm family and their grotesque butler, Morgan (Boris Karloff). The Femms appear to consist of an ascerbic old bachelor named Horace (Ernest Thesiger, who also played Dr. Pretorius in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN) and his half-deaf religious maniac spinster sister, Rebecca (Eva Moore, said in her youth to be a great beauty of the Victorian era). They snap and fight with each other. It is eventually revealed that there are other members of the household, including a mad pyromaniac with homicidal tendencies. The involuntary houseguests include a chorus girl, a gay businessman, a disillusioned young veteran of World War I, and a young married couple.
Much of the film consists of dark social comedy as these disparate characters without wealth are forced to interact. Whale gets fine performances out of his actors, and the result is more revealing of social mores and the way times have changed than any of the more outlandish Universal horror films. The meticulous way in which Whale filmed the beginning scenes with the old windowless car driving through the rainstorm is especially impressive, and it was really cool to see an ordinary 1932 car in operation that wasn't a shiny Rolls Royce. Having worked the legal side of involuntary civil commitments, I sometimes have trouble with depictions of madness on screen. The chilling denoument involving the mad brother, however, may be the most realistic protrayal of a dangerously insane person that I have ever seen on screen--and a great performance by stage actor Brember Wills. So there's an awful lot of good here, even though the tone of the film can be offputting, especially at first when you don't know where the film is going. It's the kind of film which you might like more on the second or third viewing than the first. THE OLD DARK HOUSE was remade in 1963, then spoofed in movies such as HAUNTED HONEYMOON (1986). You won't dig it, however, unless you can get into its antiqueness.
Universal Classic Horror Blog Series Rating:
4 - For everyone
3 - For horror fans only
2 - For classic horror fans only
1 - For Pete's sake
0 - Paging MST3K