You’ll have to stay here; the misfortune is yours not
ours…
Strange that a very British story described by its
author, JB Priestly, as featuring "forms of post-war pessimism
pretending to be people…" should find itself as one of the
prototypical “old dark house” stories but such was the fate of his 1927 novel Benighted.
It was directed by James Whale who had been a British officer in the Great War
and discovered his love of drama as a prisoner of war. After the war he became
involved in the theatre as an actor, scene designer and later director before
heading to Hollywood and success with Frankenstein. He was a determined
advocate for this film and I can see why although on first viewing a long time
ago, I spotted little of the pointed subtext to but there is so much to be
relished in revisiting this bleak night with the benefit of hindsight,
excellent commentaries and extra special features!
Priestley’s social commentary would use extraordinary and
super-natural circumstance in order to show his characters in sharp relief and
interacting outside of normal class lines. This also suited the filmmaker
looking to send a chill through his audience as was the vogue during pre-code
times: it’s one thing to meet a monster outside of your comfort zone and yet
another to meet people you’d rather avoid from other walks of life and beyond.
It is a dark and stormy night and the people are indeed in a forbidding
location but it’s in each other where the horror actually resides. For Whale,
having seen the depths of evil in the war to end all wars and observed it all
as a sexual outsider – his love was illegal after all – this was rich
territory.
It begins as so many of the best stories do, in the heart
of rain-sodden Wales “somewhere in the mountains…” as a couple, Philip
and Margaret Waverton (Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart) are attempting to
drive themselves and their friend Penderel (Melvyn Douglas) to Shrewsbury where
“nothing ever happens”. The Wavertons are cold, wet and bickering but Penderel
is in annoyingly good humour urging them to drive on with a chorus of “we’re
singing in the bathtub…”. He’s exactly the kind of wise-cracking guy you need
to make an old dark house thriller!
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| Ernst Thesiger |
Said bleak mansion duly arrives and the threesome are “welcomed”
at the old house’s old oak door by darkly scarred face of the barely verbal
retainer Morgan (Boris Karloff) who eventually lets them in to meet the Femm
Family, a febrile mix of the neurotic and the manic who prove conclusively that
the family that hates together, stays together. First up is the singular figure
of Ernst Thesiger as the fretful Horace a man so full of concerns that you
wonder how he’s lasted this long especially once his partially deaf and wholly
spiteful sister Rebecca (Eva Moore) arrives.
You’re afraid Horace, you’re afraid aren’t you. You
don’t believe in God and yet you’re afraid to die! You’ve seen his anger in the
sky and you’ve heard him in the night and you’re afraid, afraid, afraid… where’s
your mocking now?
As Horace panics after the Wavertons explain about the
mudslides and the floods, his sister lambasts him for his faint heart, his
superior attitude melting away in that face of his fear and yet their house is
built on rock and will be safe. Or will it…? Hell is other people and there’s even
more to the Femms than appearances suggest.
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| Gloria Stuart and Eva Moore |
The Femms agree to the three friends taking shelter even
though “no beds, you can’t have beds…” Horace brings them a drink and raises a
self-pitying toast to “illusion” with the world wearily witty Penderel saying
he’s precisely the right age to drink to that. Horace then pulls as face
saying, I assume you are one of the generation slightly, shall we say, “battered
by the war”? as if it’s a cliché he’s almost too bored to utter. The exchanges
are clipped and precise, the meaning often ambiguous. Hell is other people
indeed.
Horace confesses that he is worried about Morgan who on a
night like this is likely to drink and become a dangerous brute. He directs his
comment at Margaret who, ignoring the signal, decides to change into her
evening gown an action that is clearly contrary to common sense but civilised society
must continue even as Rebecca berates her morality reminded of her “wicked” younger
sister Rachel “handsome and wild as a hawk” who died a painful death, “godless
to the last”. It’s an uncomfortable watch, the younger woman willowy in a silk
dress as the elder, her face distorted in the mirror by her religious mania,
turns on her warning of the inevitability of physical and spiritual decline. And
Morgan is seen looking on…
Nice weather for ducks!
If Rebecca has issue with the demure Margaret, she’s
about to need a bigger sneer as two more drivers through the storm arrive in
the form of wealthy self-made businessman Sir William Porterhouse (the genius Charles
Laughton!) and his young friend Gladys DuCane (Lilian Bond) a perky showgirl,
real name Perkins!
 |
| Gloria and Boris |
Once you’ve started making money it’s hard to stop… I
may not be this and I may not be that but you don’t catch me pretending to be
what I’m not!
There’s an immediate rise in the film’s energy as Sir Bill’s
outspoken outbursts unsettle the upper middle-class audience and the urbane Penderel
has to speak out in Gladys’ defence as her sugar uncle’s mix of self-importance
and self-pity are revealed. The dialogue is smart and well-delivered as the evening
draws on and issues of class begin to be over-shadowed not just by concerns
about Morgan’s sobriety but also by whatever or whoever lurks above in the dark
landing…
It's such a string cast with so many intriguing interactions that the fact things mostly take place in the one big room and wouldn’t be out of place on the stage, is secondary to the suspense between the characters and the situation. It’s all about atmosphere and having viewed it a number of times now, there’s not a wasted word. Whale directs with crispness and builds that air of unsettling mystery so well aided by the exceptional cinematography of Arthur Edeson.
Rightfully a classic and well served in this UHD edition: it’s never looked sharper or darker!
Melvyn, Gloria and Raymond
Spooky extra features:
- Audio commentary by critic and author Kim Newman and Stephen Jones
- Audio commentary by Gloria Stuart*
- Audio commentary by James Whale biographer James Curtis
- Meet the Femms – video essay by critic and filmmaker David Cairns
- Daughter of Frankenstein – an interview with Sara Karloff
- Rescuing a Classic – archival interview with director Curtis Harrington focused on his efforts to save The Old Dark House, then considered a lost film
- 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation from a 4K digital restoration, presented in a new and exclusive Dolby Vision HDR (HDR 10 compatible) grade, with uncompressed LPCM audio!
- 2018 re-release trailer
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- Stills gallery
Limited edition of 2000 copies:
- O-card slipcase, featuring artwork by Sara Deck strictly exclusive to this edition only
- A limited-edition collector’s booklet featuring a new essay on The Old Dark House by Craig Ian Mann, an essay by Philip Kemp and select archival material
*Fun fact: apparently James Cameron was so impressed
with Gloria’s commentary on the original laserdisc that he cast her as the
elder version of Rose in Titanic, amazing to think she spanned both pre-code
and the modern era like this. Her commentary is indeed rather special!
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This is really impressive! thanks for share this awesome research!
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