Plenty of great stuff here - a solid story (from Henry James), spooky moments, decent cast... but the script is overly verbose and complicated, and it needed a better director. In fairness Martin Gable hadn't done it before and he tries - there's some long tracking shots, spooky sounds, music through the corridors... but it doesn't quite work.
The set up is easy enough though there's too much dialogue about it - publisher Robert Cummings goes undercover at a house to track down some love letters written by a famous poet.
The film sets up some interesting support characters and doesn't do anything with them - Eduardo Cinelli as a priest, and especially John Archer as a greedy poet (what happens to his character? He should die on screen or something). The film seems as though it's building towards an unhappy ending so the happyish one feels like a let down. It's like the filmmakers wanted to do a more out-and-out thriller but didn't have the guts to go all the way.
Robert Cummings, Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead are all fine, though one suspects they'd be better with a stronger director. The romance between Cummings and Hayward feels perfunctory - in part because Hayward acts so weird in both personas. The persona Cummings falls in love with should be more earthy or something - some way that obviously attracts him.
Still it is interesting. It's ambitious. Some creepy moments and memorable music.
This didn't have to cost as much as it did - there was no point to that sequence where they went to a town fair.
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