James Whale’s horror films have dated incredibly well, due to the vigour of the handling and the strength and energy of the performances. They also tended to have decent stories – this one is based on a novel by JB Priestley, about a group of travellers who wind up in an old dark house. The structure is basically “if you think that person was weird, wait until you meet X”. We have a crusty weird old deaf and dumb butler (Boris Karloff), a effeminate coward (Ernest Thesinger), his religious sister, their 110 year old father (played by a female actor) and super scary elder brother – who at first meeting seems to be the most normal but is actually the weirdest.
It helps that the travellers are a bunch of interesting characters played by an excellent cast – Melvyn Douglas as a world-weary, romantic war veteran; Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart as his married friends; Charles Laughton (in his feature debut) as a likeable industrialist and Lilian Bond as his mistress. Actually all the performances are strong. Just thinking about it, Whale made stars of Colin Clive, Boris Karloff, Claude Rains, Charles Laughton (and greatly helped Douglas and Massey)… that’s a pretty good strike rate, even allowing for the fact this happened during the early days of sound when there was an unusually high number of new names.
There is some enjoyable pre-Code sexiness – Gloria Stuart gets changed into a nightie for no good reason other than a perve; Bond is clearly Laughton’s mistress but isn’t punished for it - indeed, she gets Douglas. Good fun.
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