What could have been a run-of-the mill thriller about the strange goings on in a creaky old mansion is instead transformed into a cheesy camp fest by the amazing James Whale. Although there are a lot of subtle "wink-nudge" moments in the film, I'm just not sure the movie was originally intended to be as subversive as it appears to be today.
Standard scary movie setup here - a young, naive, and stodgy married couple, traveling with their single, wisecracking male friend, get lost in a fierce rainstorm and find refuge in the only place they can - a scary looking old house in the middle of the Welsh countryside.
They're greeted at the door by a mute (and mutant-like) butler played by Boris Karloff, whose dialogue consists solely of a series of grunts and guttural noises. I couldn't help but think this character helped inspire the Addams Family's man-servant, Lurch. The house is owned by a loony brother and sister pair named Rebecca and Horace Femm (an obvious Whale shout out to the gay audiences of 1932), expertly played by Eva Moore and Ernest Thesiger. Eva is an over-the-top religious whacko who immediately accuses the gorgeous Gloria Stuart (yes - THAT Gloria Stuart from Titanic) of indulging in "pleasures of the flesh," all the while trying to cop a feel of the young beauty at every opportunity. Horace is a wimpy scaredy cat who's too afraid to walk up the stairs to the top floor of the house and fetch a candelabra.
Before long, two more stranded travelers show up at the house - Sir William Porterhouse, who, as played by Charles Laughton, appears to have done nothing but consume them for the past 20 years, and his plaything, Gladys DuCane Perkins (Lillian Bond). We know immediately that Gladys is a "bad girl" because she starts dancing like a gin-swilling flapper as soon as she gets in the house. Within 15 minutes, however, she's enraptured and tamed by the wisecracking bachelor Roger Penderel (Melvyn Douglas) and falls head over heels in love with him.
Gladys tells Penderel that Porterhouse likes people to think he's "ever so gay," even though he "expects nothing" from her. I wonder if Whale was paralleling Laughton's off-screen persona here, since Laughton was known to be gay, even though he was married to actress Elsa Lanchester (the female monster in Whale's Bride of Frankenstein).
There's an absolute gem of an uncomfortable dinner scene involving all the characters, with Rebecca and Horace trading snipes across the table like George and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf. And Horace's repeated directive to each of his guests to "have a potato" is priceless.
Eventually, the movie unveils a crazy brother locked up in the attic, a 102-year old man (played by a 61-year old woman named Elspeth Dudgeon) tucked away in a remote chamber, and the requisite murderous rampage as the guests run and hide to save their lives.
Some of the more unintentionally funny scenes involve Gloria Stuart's highly theatrical panic as she tries to escape the lustful clutches of Karloff's mad butler character, and Lillian Bond's declaration of unconditional love for Melvyn Douglass while hiding with Stuart in a closet as Douglas battles outside with the crazy brother. The only clichéd thing the women in this movie don't seem to do is faint when confronted by the horror before them.
Then there's the day after all the chaos with Horace gleefully gliding down the stairs and greeting his guests with a chipper "good morning," apparently forgetting that his home was ransacked and set on fire and that his brother was killed just the night before.
Although probably intended to be a scary movie when it was released, it's really not scary at all. Whale's excellent use of light and shadows helps bring a cold, eerie atmosphere to the proceedings, but the film is really more of a parlor piece that's engaging primarily because of the quirky characters populating the screen.
See it for the novelty aspect, but don't expect to be chilled by the experience.
Standard scary movie setup here - a young, naive, and stodgy married couple, traveling with their single, wisecracking male friend, get lost in a fierce rainstorm and find refuge in the only place they can - a scary looking old house in the middle of the Welsh countryside.
They're greeted at the door by a mute (and mutant-like) butler played by Boris Karloff, whose dialogue consists solely of a series of grunts and guttural noises. I couldn't help but think this character helped inspire the Addams Family's man-servant, Lurch. The house is owned by a loony brother and sister pair named Rebecca and Horace Femm (an obvious Whale shout out to the gay audiences of 1932), expertly played by Eva Moore and Ernest Thesiger. Eva is an over-the-top religious whacko who immediately accuses the gorgeous Gloria Stuart (yes - THAT Gloria Stuart from Titanic) of indulging in "pleasures of the flesh," all the while trying to cop a feel of the young beauty at every opportunity. Horace is a wimpy scaredy cat who's too afraid to walk up the stairs to the top floor of the house and fetch a candelabra.
Before long, two more stranded travelers show up at the house - Sir William Porterhouse, who, as played by Charles Laughton, appears to have done nothing but consume them for the past 20 years, and his plaything, Gladys DuCane Perkins (Lillian Bond). We know immediately that Gladys is a "bad girl" because she starts dancing like a gin-swilling flapper as soon as she gets in the house. Within 15 minutes, however, she's enraptured and tamed by the wisecracking bachelor Roger Penderel (Melvyn Douglas) and falls head over heels in love with him.
Gladys tells Penderel that Porterhouse likes people to think he's "ever so gay," even though he "expects nothing" from her. I wonder if Whale was paralleling Laughton's off-screen persona here, since Laughton was known to be gay, even though he was married to actress Elsa Lanchester (the female monster in Whale's Bride of Frankenstein).
There's an absolute gem of an uncomfortable dinner scene involving all the characters, with Rebecca and Horace trading snipes across the table like George and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf. And Horace's repeated directive to each of his guests to "have a potato" is priceless.
Eventually, the movie unveils a crazy brother locked up in the attic, a 102-year old man (played by a 61-year old woman named Elspeth Dudgeon) tucked away in a remote chamber, and the requisite murderous rampage as the guests run and hide to save their lives.
Some of the more unintentionally funny scenes involve Gloria Stuart's highly theatrical panic as she tries to escape the lustful clutches of Karloff's mad butler character, and Lillian Bond's declaration of unconditional love for Melvyn Douglass while hiding with Stuart in a closet as Douglas battles outside with the crazy brother. The only clichéd thing the women in this movie don't seem to do is faint when confronted by the horror before them.
Then there's the day after all the chaos with Horace gleefully gliding down the stairs and greeting his guests with a chipper "good morning," apparently forgetting that his home was ransacked and set on fire and that his brother was killed just the night before.
Although probably intended to be a scary movie when it was released, it's really not scary at all. Whale's excellent use of light and shadows helps bring a cold, eerie atmosphere to the proceedings, but the film is really more of a parlor piece that's engaging primarily because of the quirky characters populating the screen.
See it for the novelty aspect, but don't expect to be chilled by the experience.