The Old Dark House (1932)

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Blistering performances.

Most people haven't heard of this film. The fact that The Old Dark House didn't feature an iconic Universal Monster nor, for that matter, any supernatural elements at all, has unfairly kept it from being as widely celebrated as it should. But, directed with a gleefully wicked eye by James Whale, this film is a true dark classic.The cast alone makes this movie worth watching. Seeing a strong screen presence such as Raymond Massey repeatedly upstaged is a delight. Charles Laughton bellows and blusters throughout as a likable lout before delivering the film's most poignant and sensitive scene. Eva Moore, as the unpleasant Rebecca Femm is positively detestable. The Mistress of the titular house, Miss Femm, is a parsimonious, judgmental old shrew who may or may not have murdered her own sister. Throw in the always hilarious Ernest Thesiger, a perfectly menacing Boris Karloff and a dashing young Melvyn Douglas and the results are delightful. The story itself is delicious with bawdy hints of murder, lust, incest, and madness. By the end of the film, many of the secrets of the twisted Femm family remain occulted and the surviving cast seems happy to leave things that way. On top of this, a lighthearted love story runs blithely alongside the atmospheric elements of horror and integrates itself flawlessly. Steeped with his trademark humor, blasphemy and irreverence, this is a true James Whale classic. I recommend it for all aficionados of classic horror. I intend to purchase it immediately so I can watch it again and again.

The Old Dark House is the second of James Whale's four horror masterpieces and is probably less well known than his two Frankenstein epics and Invisible Man; but it is also one of his most personal and in-jokey films, remaining a delightful concoction of humour and ghoulish eccentricity.The plot is pretty simple, three travellers (Gloria Stuart, Raymond Massey and Melvyn Douglas) are stranded during a terrible storm at a remote house in the Welsh mountains whose inhabitants are both odd and grotesque. The demesne is occupied by the Family Femm, and we are quickly introduced to Horace (Ernest Thesiger), Rebecca (Eva Moore)and a mute,brutish butler named Morgan (Boris Karloff). But they are not the only members of the house, and therein lies the mystery....Later our stranded travellers are joined by two other storm-shelterers, Sir William Porterhouse (the irrepressible Charles Laughton), and Gladys Ducane (Lillian Bond). And what a magnificent bunch of actors they all make. Whale is such a skilled craftsman he can round out his characters in just a minute or two of screen time.A simple story then, but the magic is in the telling. Whale gives us a marvellous scene between Eva Moore and Gloria Stuart as the latter is changing her dress, cross cutting into close-up through a distorted mirror on Moore's vicious old crone - "That's fine stuff but it'll rot", she says, pointing to Stuart's chic evening dress. Then she touches her prey on the chest "That's finer stuff, but it'll rot too in time." There is more to this scene but I won't spoil it.Look out for the hilarious dinner scene with Laughton exclaiming mightily over the pleasures of roast beef. And over the supper lurks Boris Karloff's drunken, lustful butler dishing up water, pickled onions and black-eyed potatoes while sneaking glances at Gloria Stuart.Karloff's a delight, going on the rampage after a bender, and letting out the black sheep of the family. Lets just say an actor by the name of Brember Wills almost steals the whole movie even though he makes his entrance very late as the impish pyromaniac His 10 minutes or so of screen time are truly unforgettable.All the cast are terrific, though the romantic interest scenes are possibly the only weak point in the film. Even Whale can't build up a convincing romance between two characters in such a short space of time, but who's quibbling? The Old Dark House is masterpiece of black comedy. For me it's the last word on Old Dark House movies - you know the kind! Long neglected by Universal - until the late sixties prints were not in circulation; the studio actually believed the negative had been lost. Thankfully a print turned up and we can still saviour this eccentric glory of a film.

A darker or stormier night would be hard to imagine, what with all the landslides and floods (and I've been caught out of doors not once but TWICE during hurricanes) and the claustrophobic OLD DARK HOUSE itself the stuff of nightmares. Who could ask for more: a mysterious old "couple," their monstrous manservant, an androgynous, bedridden old patron, and a psychotic pyromaniac locked away in the attic. Throw in two groups of weary travelers and let the games begin. Once again, James Whale tells a Whale of a tale and Karloff, though wordless throughout the proceedings (as in James Whale's first FRANKENSTEIN feature), manages to conjure up some powerful emotion(s); his struggle with three men (Melvyn Douglas, Raymond Massey and Charles Laughton) reminds one of his wrestling match with Colin Clive and Edward Van Sloan in FRANKENSTEIN, as well. All around, a pretty nice way to spend a dark and stormy night.

Two groups of travellers driving through a storm in remote countryside are forced to seek shelter in an old house, where they find some strange hospitality - until a dark secret is revealed.Feel good chiller with plenty of charm and idiosyncrasy. The location is a rambling mansion with plenty of dark nooks and crannies, and a flight of primitive steps at the front door that the actors had some difficulty negotiating. As usual, characters split up and wander off in defiance of common sense, and their piercing screams fail to reach the ears of their fellow travellers, in defiance of the laws of physics.The performances are uneven, but the stand outs are the three ladies who present very different characters – oh, and there's a fourth lady, unaccountably in drag. The director was having fun. Of the men, one character is poorly written, so there's not much the actor could do – but otherwise the performances are entertaining, although the cackling laughter can't make up for the underwhelming nature of the reveal. A daft story, not to be taken seriously, and the plot jumps about as we move from one part of the house to the other, ending in a sappy climax.Overall, not really a horror – more an entertaining oddity.