Low

 Once upon a time there was a part-work magazine called The Masters. Each issue featured a collection of nice big colour reproductions of art by a famous painter plus a monograph by someone appropriate. For Leonardo da Vinci they decided they couldn't do better than reprint the late 19th century essay by Walter Pater- which is one of the glories of English prose. Anyway, in my dream it had started up again, only they were doing it on the cheap and the paper was grotty and they were having it printed by the people who print The Radio Times. The first issue featured a contemporary artist called Low who painted dim grey pictures of uninteresting subjects. Apparently he was thought to be very great only I wasn't so sure.

Low was also a chef- and buying the magazine involved you in eating a multi-course meal he'd prepared that looked splendid but tasted of nothing very much. "This is just like the food you get in dreams" I thought. And the remakable thing is I failed to take that further step in cognition and conclude, "So this must be a dream I'm having." It was a missed opportunity to go lucid- and I could kick myself.

The Spiral Staircase

 I seem to be in the mood for this sort of thing at the moment.

It's a silly story. A girl who has lost the power of speech because of trauma is banged up in a gothic mansion with several men knocking around- one of whom may be an atrocious murderer.  The acting is mostly as wooden as the script encourages them to be, though Ethel Barrymore got a best supporting Oscar for playing a cranky old woman, Dorothy McGuire (must have been great to have a starring role with no lines to learn!) is charming enough and Elsa Lanchester has a nice little cameo as a housekeeper with a taste for brandy. I'm always very happy to see Elsa!

The thing is it works. Suspense? Check. Detective interest? Check. A thrilling climax? Check. Noir visuals? Check- and at it's furthest stretch there's a distinct flavour of German expressionism. Robert Siodmak directs.

Siodmak had a a long, eventful and interesting international career. He started in silents, made films in Germany, France, Britain and, of course, the USA and  his last film (a Swords and Sandals epic which is reportedly nor very good) came out in 1969. He was a gun for hire not an auteur, but some of his movies are "classics", including, I'd be prepared to argue, this.....