The extra vulnerability of the handicapped has been a magnet to attract some fine directors of suspense
The fulcrum of Robert Siodmak's 'The Spiral Staircase' was the fact that the beautiful and expressive Dorothy McGuire was dumb deprived of her speech by shock Her terror when death stalked had to be wordless, and it was all the more potent She could not communicate, she could not plead or call for help
It was New England in 1906, and she was employed by the bedridden mistress (Ethel Barrymore) of an old mansion (decorated in Victorian style). On the girl's day off, a disabled girl was found murdered in the little town. It was the third such murder In each case the victim had been physically handicapped and, as we learned later, the murderer killed because he could not tolerate imperfection
There was a chilling start to the suspense as Dorothy McGuire walked home through a stormy night, rattling a twig against railings In a lightning flash we saw but she did not the silhouette of a man watching her On into the house and, as she paused on a landing, we saw the feet of the man on another landing waiting. And then, in a close-up of his eye, we saw her face reflected an imperfect face
On this level the tension was maintained in visual terms, through the murder of another girl in the house and the mute's discovery of the body, and her belief that she knows the murderer She tricks him into a room and locks him in but, as she is to find, she has locked up the wrong man
Ethel Barrymore received the film's only Academy Award nomination, as Best Supporting Actress McGuire would have to wait another year to be nominated as Best Actress, for her great role in Elia Kazan's emotional 'Gentleman's Agreement', 1947.
The fulcrum of Robert Siodmak's 'The Spiral Staircase' was the fact that the beautiful and expressive Dorothy McGuire was dumb deprived of her speech by shock Her terror when death stalked had to be wordless, and it was all the more potent She could not communicate, she could not plead or call for help
It was New England in 1906, and she was employed by the bedridden mistress (Ethel Barrymore) of an old mansion (decorated in Victorian style). On the girl's day off, a disabled girl was found murdered in the little town. It was the third such murder In each case the victim had been physically handicapped and, as we learned later, the murderer killed because he could not tolerate imperfection
There was a chilling start to the suspense as Dorothy McGuire walked home through a stormy night, rattling a twig against railings In a lightning flash we saw but she did not the silhouette of a man watching her On into the house and, as she paused on a landing, we saw the feet of the man on another landing waiting. And then, in a close-up of his eye, we saw her face reflected an imperfect face
On this level the tension was maintained in visual terms, through the murder of another girl in the house and the mute's discovery of the body, and her belief that she knows the murderer She tricks him into a room and locks him in but, as she is to find, she has locked up the wrong man
Ethel Barrymore received the film's only Academy Award nomination, as Best Supporting Actress McGuire would have to wait another year to be nominated as Best Actress, for her great role in Elia Kazan's emotional 'Gentleman's Agreement', 1947.