Sunday, January 20, 2013

The Uninvited (1944)

Director: Lewis Allen                                   Writers: Dodie Smith and Frank Partos
Film Score: Victor Young                            Cinematography: Charles Lang
Starring: Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp and Alan Napier

The Uninvited is a nice ghost story that satisfies just for the fact that the ghost is real. Hollywood had an obsession in the golden years of explaining away supernatural, much to the overall detriment of the films. And because it deals with a child and family issues, the most recent film with the same feel is The Changeling with George C. Scott. Even though the film is sprinkled with comedy relief, the last half hour is fairly tense, with all parties fully engaged in discovering what the ghost wants, and protecting the child who is in danger from it.

Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey are a brother and sister who discover a large house on a cliff in Devonshire and promptly buy it, despite the fact that it comes complete with tales of hauntings. The owner’s granddaughter doesn’t want him to sell because it was the house that she spent her first three years of life in with her mother, before her mother’s untimely death and the hands of her husband’s mistress. When the granddaughter comes over for a visit and is possessed by a spirit who takes her to the precipice of the cliff, she is saved at the last minute by Milland, and he and Hussey with the aid of the doctor, Alan Napier, begin to trace the family history in order to discover the unrest.

There seems to be a connection/inspiration with Rebecca, even though the original source material was a novel by Dorothy Macardle called Uneasy Freehold. One resemblance has to do with the deceased mother, Mary Meredith, and the worship shown to her memory not only by her father, but in the form of the large paintings in the granddaughters room as well as her friend, Miss Holloway. Cornelia Otis Skinner’s Holloway even looks a bit like Judith Anderson’s Miss Danvers from the Hitchcock film. Then, of course, there’s the cliff overlooking the ocean, and the reluctance of everyone in the village to be forthcoming with any information, as well as the accident that is discovered to have been a murder.

Victor Young’s wonderful score for the film included the song “Stella by Starlight,” named after the character of the granddaughter played by Gail Russell. It was a popular song and soon became a jazz standard that has endured to this day. There was a lot of nice lighting work, as much of the interiors were filmed as nighttime scenes. And there is also some nifty special effects work in realizing the ghost that is reminiscent of the one that would be used in Ghost Story. The humor is something that could wind up being annoying, as it is in many supernatural stories of the time, but it’s surprisingly integral to the story and is used sparingly and to good effect. It hasn't been released on DVD yet, The Uninvited is a classic ghost story and a great film.

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