Showing posts with label Melvyn Douglas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Melvyn Douglas. Show all posts

Friday, March 3, 2017

The Old Dark House


When dealing with films from the early 1930s, even classics, what you get is a crap-shoot. It was a time when the art of film making was still in its infancy, and it varied from director to director just how well the process was actually understood. Many films were shot in ways that just seemed slightly off, and the editing was often sloppy. A great example of an otherwise good film marred by this is The Black Cat, which was little more than a filmed stage play.

On the flip side, there were films that seemed well ahead of their time. Most of the classic Universal Monster films fall into this category, with Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy showing visual skills equivalent to movies that came out at least two decades later. These are probably the films we’re most likely to see today.

The Old Dark House seems like a strange hybrid of these, giving it a possibly unintentional surreal feel that makes it truly terrifying to behold. I don’t want to discount the possibility that the film itself may have deteriorated with time. Either way, it’s the film I watched that I have to review, and the poor sound quality and odd lighting, in a film that’s otherwise competently shot and edited, works perfectly to create fear.

The movie is set off when a couple, Phillip and Margaret Waverton (Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart), and a veteran traveling with them named Penderel (Melvyn Douglas), are forced by a storm to take shelter in a large house. I’m not entirely sure why Mr. Penderel was with them, as he doesn’t seem especially familiar with them. My best guess is he was supposed to be a hitch-hiker. I’m not sure what to make of him personality-wise either, as the opening scene makes him out to be somewhat shell-shocked, using humor to cover it up, while the remainder of the movie portrays him as quite suave.

The house is home to the Femm family, and they’re “greeted” by elderly siblings Horace and Rebecca (Ernest Thesiger and Eva Moore). Their interactions are truly hilarious. Rebecca is an old nag with selective hearing who keeps repeating the same things over and over again, while Horace is an utter coward. They’re served by a hulking mute named Morgan, (Boris Karloff, going through a period of his career when he was briefly type-cast as hulking mutes).

During dinner, the guests are joined by Sir William Porterhouse (Charles Laughton) and his “friend” Gladys (Lillian Bond). Honestly, these characters deserve a film to themselves. This was among the last of the pre-code films, and they likely would have been presented as much more villainous if the movie had been made a few years later.

Sir William comes from a humble background, but his wife passed away after being jilted by members of High Society. Sir William pledged to become rich solely to gain the money and power needed to ruin the people he blamed for his wife’s death, and for the most part has succeeded. We’re told quite openly that Gladys is a showgirl, and the two have no shame about their casual relationship. She, while fond of him, wants his money, and he simply wants her for momentary affection. When she finds herself falling in love with Penderel, he has no objection, although he thinks she’s “mad” for falling in love with a penniless man.

During the storm, Morgan becomes drunk and frees the third Femm sibling, Saul (Brember Wills), who had been locked in the attic due to his pyromania. There’s a very strong build-up to Saul, with appropriate tension as the characters scramble around in utter fear. The character himself is quite affable. I’m not entirely sure if it’s an act, or if his madness is compulsion rather than malice. I prefer to think the latter, as it makes the story far more tragic. He claims that Morgan beats him, and that his siblings killed a fourth child, Rachael, and locked him away to conceal the truth. I wouldn’t put any of this past them.

The movie ends, predictably enough, with Saul setting fire to the house, but he’s stopped with surprising efficiency. Morgan seems to sober up enough to sadly cradle Saul’s body and carry it up the stairs. Whether Saul dies, or is simply knocked unconscious, is left ambiguous. If he does die, he’s the only casualty of the film, which either way has an amazingly low body-count by modern standards. It’s awe-inspiring just how much tension they can get without a single death.

This movie is tense, and definitely worth the hour and twelve minutes. On a final note, seeing Melvyn Douglas in this was awesome, since I had to review The Changeling for my 100 Scariest Movie Moments reviews. Seeing the actor still working 48 years later, just a year before his death, creates a truly astounding contrast.

Monday, December 21, 2015

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #54 The Changeling

I was reluctant to see The Changeling. I knew that it was on the list, so I'd have to watch it eventually, but I was in absolutely no rush. The main reason was George C. Scott. I had so much trouble imagining him in the role of a sensitive, grief-stricken father that I expected the movie to be laughable, but I was pleasantly surprised by just how well he carried the film. He showed the appropriate sensitivity, but also gave a strength and a weight to his character that helped the film immensely.



Scott plays John Russell, a wealthy composer whose wife and daughter (Jean Marsh and Michelle Martin) die in a horrible accident. He decides to move from New York to Washington State to get away from his old life. He feels that he needs to force himself to be productive to better deal with his grief, so he resumes teaching and composing.



Strange noises, and eventually visions, begin in Russell's house. He discovers that the house is haunted by a young boy named Joseph Carmichael (Voldi Way). The details of Joseph's death are one of the most tragic things I've ever seen portrayed in film. Joseph's mother was a wealthy heiress who passed away when he was still a child, and Joseph himself was a sickly boy. This made Joseph the heir to his Grandfather's fortune, but if he died before the age of 21, the entire estate would pass to charity. Desperate to keep control of the fortune, Joseph's father drowned him and had him replaced with a healthy orphan, fleeing to Europe until the orphan was too old to be easily identified as a fake. (Under the guise of looking for a “cure” for Joseph).



When dealing with supernatural presences in film, I always find ghosts to be far more interesting than demons. A ghost, even if his behavior is irrational, at least has rational goals. This makes a ghost function as a character we can relate to. In this particular case, a great deal of the fear comes from the fact that there can be little, if anything, resembling justice for the ghost. He's dead, and his father passed without facing any consequences.



The movie does give in to some Hollywood cliches which drag it down a bit. The hero must have a female love interest (Trish Van Devere), to whom he can recite exposition. I have no strong opinion either way on Van Devere's performance, but her actual character adds fairly little. Also, the ghost must, at some point, stop giving people visions and begin attacking them physically.



I also find John's status as a wealthy composer to be a bit baffling. He seems to have been given an arbitrarily large fortune simply because the plot required him to live in a house previously occupied by the fabulously wealthy. I could speculate on several reasons why they made this creative choice instead of just giving him a different job, but it would likely take up far more space than I'm prepared to devote to it.



While the role is small, Scott's real co-star is Melvyn Douglas, as (for lack of a name other than “Joseph Carmichael”) the Changeling. While Douglas doesn't get a lot of screen time, he does a good job of making the Changeling, now a Senator, out to be a decent old man, completely oblivious of his (adoptive) father's crime. His role is tricky, as we have to like him, even as he must be in conflict with John, denying the entire allegation.



The ending comes across as just plain silly to me, and I feel like it's the result of a cop-out with the writers not being able to think of any other way to appease the spirit. The Changeling seems to astral-project himself into the house (rather than, you know, actually going there), and goes to the room of the original Joseph Carmichael to witness the ghostly reenactment of his father's crime. Then, the room blows up, and the Changeling has a heart attack.



I think the idea of the Changeling dying could have worked well. A 6-year-old's concept of “justice” is likely quite weak, and presumably he simply wanted to turn his years of pain onto someone else. However, it should have been done in a more subtle way, focusing on the emotions, and certainly should not have involved an explosion.



I do recommend this movie. It's a bit slow-moving, but it’s entertaining. It's tragic, well-acted, and has some points of real originality.