The Old Dark House (1932)
Genre: Old dark house, Gothic
IMDb meta-data is 1 hour and 12 minutes, rated 7.1/10.0 by 8062 cinematizens
Verdict: In the beginning.
The Set-up: Monsoon rains in Wales wash out roads and lead two separate travelling parties to pitch up at the Old Dark House of the Femm family. If only the travellers had been able to read the map where it said ‘Do Not Stop Here.’ But it was too wet, too dark, and the director was in too much of hurry for that warning.
There they find the hirsute, mute butler, Frankestein’s monster, moonlighting in a second job. Melvyn Douglas wise cracks; Raymond Massey looks serious; Lillian Bond just looks as does the very talented Gloria Stuart (of Titanic) in this pre-Code film; but Charles Laughton has the best part and plays it superbly. Then there are the cross-dressing Femms, Horace, Rebecca, Saul, and Roderick engaged in a race to the nut house.
Enthusiasts for creepy old dark houses, ahem, like me, are in for a disappointment. There are no secret passages (from which chain saw wielding cats leap), no sliding panels (to reveal a torture chamber), no peep holes (through which to see terrible sights, like a Republican), nor does anyone flounce around in a cape (the most common ensemble for villains in Old Dark Houses).
On the other hand, the Femms do provide compensations. Horace jumps every time someone scratches. Rebecca screeches denunciations of all as sinners. Roderick is the cross-dresser. Saul likes fire. Lots of it.
We never do find out anything about the travellers and they all survive the night to continue being unknown though in a slightly different configuration. In these days Douglas often played the wise-cracking wastrel, belying his later, memorable dramatic roles.
James Whale of Frankenstein directed, wasting Boris Karloff behind some hairy make-up, from the novel Benighted (1927) by J.B. Priestly; the screenplay closely follows the book. Among the nice touches are many visuals, nobody can open a door like Frankenstein’s monster, or the split mirrors before Gloria Stuart, the shadows on the dining room wall, and never did the phrase ‘Have a potato!’ seem so strange. By comparison the Hammer remake in 1963 is a toga party.