An old dark house mystery with Errol Flynn in the Rochester-type role as a brooding aloof man mourning the death of his brother… when he’s surprised by the arrival of said brother’s widow (Barbra Stanwyck). There are spooky sounds coming from the lab, creepy servants, and Errol is trying to bust up the relationship involving his sister (Geraldine Brooks) and her boyfriend.
Structurally maybe the film needed an opening sequence where Stanwyck is shown to be courting the dead brother, just to establish her bona fides (though Babs is so straight up and down you tend to believe her straight away). And definitely the end is a bit of a damp squib. Not the story, the story’s great – hereditary insanity always works (Jane Eyre, The Old Dark House, the movie adaptation of King’s Row) – but the treatment here is a bit flat; it felt as though it needed something spectacular – thunder and lightning and a spiral staircase, or the building on fire or something. And why does Errol stand back passively holding Babs why a bit part actor does the heroic fighting of the baddie? This stops it from reaching the top rank, but I have to say I really enjoyed it.
Babs is very likeable and sensible; a weaker actor (or character), though, may have added to the tension eg Joan Fontaine in Rebecca. Errol is very effective in an atypical role – slightly aloof, cold, rather in the manner of his Soames in That Forsyte Woman. This was “a Thomson Production” – meaning it was made through Errol Flynn’s company.
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